Common Chiffchaff | Phylloscopus collybita

Voice

The call is a rising hoo-eet; Siberian Chiffchaffs (tristis) give a plaintive, flat eep, like a chick. The song is an irregular series of two alternating notes, chiff-chaff-chiff-chiff-chaff, in late spring also heard from wintering birds and migrants.

Identification

10–12 cm. A small, compact leaf warbler, brownish olive-green above and off-white below with a yellow or buff wash on breast and flanks. Short, rather faint supercilium, a dark eye-stripe and a conspicuous pale half eye-ring below the eye. Legs and bill dark, almost black. Short primary projection. Constantly dips its tail. The western forms (collybita, abietinus, brevirostris) are greenish with some yellow; Siberian Chiffchaff (tristis), which winters mainly in the east of the region, is cold grey-brown above and white with a buff wash below, without yellow except at the bend of the wing and on the underwing, with green edges to wing and tail.

Confusion species

Willow Warbler (Phylloscopus trochilus) is slimmer and longer-winged, with pale legs and a sharper, yellower supercilium, and does not dip its tail. Iberian Chiffchaff (Phylloscopus ibericus) is greener and yellower and can only be identified safely by song and call. Mountain Chiffchaff (Phylloscopus sindianus) lacks all green and yellow and has a falling call. Plain Leaf Warbler (Phylloscopus neglectus) is smaller and drabber, with a hard chrit.

Habitat

In winter almost anywhere with bushes or trees, preferably near water: reedbeds, tamarisks and scrub along rivers and canals, irrigated fields, orchards, olive groves and date-palm gardens, gardens and parks, oases. On Mount Hermon it breeds in well-developed Mediterranean woodland at around 1300 m.

Range and movements

Winter visitor and passage migrant throughout the region, from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya to Egypt, the Levant, Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula as far as Yemen and Oman; very common in the Maghreb, the Nile Valley and Delta, the Levant and Iraq, and in irrigated green areas in the Gulf states and Oman. In the east (Iraq, Kuwait, the Gulf states, Oman) many wintering birds are Siberian Chiffchaffs. Has bred in Israel on Mount Hermon since 2013 (20–40 pairs) and possibly also on the Lebanese and Syrian side of that massif. Beyond the region it breeds in Europe and northern Asia to eastern Siberia and in Turkey and the Caucasus; winters from western Europe to sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia.

• Resident
• Summer visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
• Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
• Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
• dark = core range, pale = thinly spread

How and when to look

In winter it is everywhere; in a garden in the Gulf states or Iraq look among the greenish birds for a grey-and-white Siberian Chiffchaff giving a plaintive eep. Anyone on Mount Hermon in June can hear the singing breeders.

Conservation status

Not globally threatened. The small breeding population on Mount Hermon is listed as Vulnerable on the Israeli Red List; wintering birds benefit from irrigation and greenery in the desert, but are trapped in parts of North Africa and Egypt.

Scientific name

Phylloscopus collybita | (Vieillot, 1817)

Vieillot described the species in 1817 as Sylvia collybita; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Phylloscopus was introduced in 1826 by Boie. Phylloscopus is Greek, from phullon 'leaf' and skopos 'seeker', from skopeō 'to watch': the bird that searches the foliage. collybita goes back to the Greek kollubistes 'money changer': the monotonous song was likened to the jingling of coins. The specimen the first description was based on came from Normandy.