Eurasian chaffinch

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
(Redirected from
Common chaffinch
)
"Chaffinch" redirects here. For other species of chaffinch, see Chaffinch (disambiguation).

Common chaffinch
Male (top) and female (bottom) in
Hessen
, Germany
Song of male in Surrey, England

Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Fringillidae
Subfamily: Fringillinae
Genus: Fringilla
Species:
F. coelebs
Binomial name
Fringilla coelebs
Distribution map
     Summer      Resident      Winter      Introduced
     canariensis      spodiogenys

The Eurasian chaffinch, common chaffinch, or simply the chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs) is a common and widespread small

blue-grey cap and rust-red
underparts. The female is more subdued in colouring, but both sexes have two contrasting white wing bars and white sides to the tail. The male bird has a strong voice and sings from exposed perches to attract a mate.

The chaffinch breeds in much of Europe, across the

Palearctic to Siberia. The female builds a nest with a deep cup in the fork of a tree. The clutch is typically four or five eggs, which hatch in about 13 days. The chicks fledge in around 14 days, but are fed by both adults for several weeks after leaving the nest. Outside the breeding season, chaffinches form flocks in open countryside and forage for seeds on the ground. During the breeding season, they forage on trees for invertebrates, especially caterpillars, and feed these to their young. They are partial migrants
; birds breeding in warmer regions are sedentary, while those breeding in the colder northern areas of their range winter further south.

The eggs and nestlings of the chaffinch are taken by a variety of mammalian and avian predators. Its large numbers and huge range mean that chaffinches are classed as of

least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature
.

Taxonomy

The Eurasian chaffinch was described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the 10th edition of his Systema Naturae under its current binomial name.[2] Fringilla is the Latin word for finch, while caelebs means unmarried or single. Linnaeus remarked that during the Swedish winter, only the female birds migrated south through Belgium to Italy.[2][3]

The English name comes from the

shelduck).[8] Appel may be related to Alp, an obsolete word for a bullfinch.[9][10] The name spink is probably derived from the bird's call note. The names spink and shell apple are among the many folk names listed for the common chaffinch by Reverend Charles Swainson in his Provincial Names and Folk Lore of British Birds (1885).[9]

The

Fringillinae containing a single genus, Fringilla, with four species: the common chaffinch (F. coelebs), the Gran Canaria blue chaffinch (F. polatzeki), the Tenerife blue chaffinch (F. teydea), and the brambling (F. montifringilla). Fringilline finches raise their young almost entirely on arthropods, while the cardueline finches raise their young on regurgitated seeds.[11]

Subspecies

A number of subspecies of the Eurasian chaffinch have been described, based principally on the differences in the pattern and colour of the adult male plumage.

Within the "coelebs group", the gradual

International Ornithologists' Union lists 11 subspecies from this group,[12] whereas Peter Clement in the Birds of the World lists seven and considers the features of the subspecies balearica (Mallorca), caucasica (the southern Caucasus), schiebeli (southern Greece, Crete and western Turkey), and tyrrhenica (Corsica) to fall within the variation of the nominate subspecies. He also suggests that the subspecies alexandrovi, sarda, solomkoi, and syriaca may represent variations of the nominate subspecies.[13]

The authors of a 2009

trinomial name Fringilla coelebs bakeri.[15]

coelebs group


  • Male F. c. syriaca, Cyprus
    Male F. c. syriaca, Cyprus
  • Female F. c. syriaca, Cyprus
    Female F. c. syriaca, Cyprus

Description

The Eurasian chaffinch is about 14.5 cm (5.7 in) long, with a wingspan of 24.5–28.5 cm (9.6–11.2 in) and a weight of 18–29 g (0.63–1.02 oz).

blue-grey crown, nape and upper mantle. The rump is a light olive-green; the lower mantle and scapulars form a brown saddle. The side of head, throat and breast are a dull rust-red merging to a pale creamy-pink on the belly. The central pair of tail feathers are dark grey with a black shaft streak. The rest of the tail is black apart from the two outer feathers on each side which have white wedges.[17] Each wing has a contrasting white panel on the coverts and a buff-white bar on the secondaries and inner primaries.[16] The flight feathers are black with white on the basal portions of the vanes. The secondaries and inner primaries have pale yellow fringes on the outer web whereas the outer primaries have a white outer edge.[17]

After the autumn moult, the tips of the new feathers have a buff fringe that adds a brown cast to the coloured plumage. The ends of the feathers wear away over the winter so that by the spring breeding season the underlying brighter colours are displayed.[17][18] The eyes have dark brown irises and the legs are grey-brown. In winter the bill is a pale grey and slightly darker along the upper ridge or culmen, but in spring the bill becomes bluish-grey with a small black tip.[19]

The male of the subspecies resident in the British Isles (F. c. gengleri) closely resembles the nominate subspecies, but has a slightly darker mantle and underparts.[20]

The adult female is much duller in appearance than the male. The head and most of the upperparts are shades of grey-brown. The underparts are paler. The lower back and rump are a dull olive green. The wings and tail are similar to those of the male. The juvenile resembles the female.[21]

Voice

Males typically sing two or three different song types, and there are regional dialects also.[22][23]

The acquisition by the young Eurasian chaffinch of its song was the subject of an influential study by British ethologist William Thorpe. Thorpe determined that if the young common chaffinch is not exposed to the adult male's song during a certain critical period after hatching, it will never properly learn the song. He also found that in adult Eurasian chaffinches, castration eliminates the song, but injection of testosterone induces such birds to sing even in November, when they are normally silent.[24][25]

Distribution and habitat

The Eurasian chaffinch breeds in wooded areas where the July

Angara River and the southern end of Lake Baikal in Siberia. The Eurasian chaffinch was introduced from Great Britain into several of its overseas territories in the second half of the 19th century. In New Zealand, the Eurasian chaffinch had colonised both the North and South Islands by 1900 and is now one of the most widespread and common passerine species.[27][28] In South Africa, a very small breeding colony in the suburbs of Constantia, Hout Bay, Pinelands and Camps Bay in Cape Town is the only remnant of another such introduction.[29]

This bird is not migratory in the milder parts of its range, but vacates the colder regions in winter. It forms loose flocks outside the breeding season, sometimes mixed with bramblings. It occasionally strays to eastern North America, although some sightings may be escapees.

Behaviour

Nest of a chaffinch
Eggs of Fringilla coelebs moreletti

Breeding

Eurasian chaffinches first breed when they are 1 year old. They are mainly monogamous and the pair-bond for residential subspecies such as gengleri sometimes persists from one year to the next.[30] The date for breeding is dependent on the spring temperature and is earlier in southwest Europe and later in the northeast. In Great Britain, most clutches are laid between late April and the middle of June. A male attracts a female to his territory through song.[31]

Nests are built entirely by the female and are usually located in the fork of a bush or a tree several metres above the ground.

moult at around five weeks of age in which they replace their head, body and many of their covert feathers, but not their primary and secondary flight feathers.[19] After breeding adult birds undergo a complete annual moult which lasts around ten weeks.[19][35]

In a study carried out in Britain using ring-recovery data, the survival rate for juveniles in their first year was 53 per cent, and the adult annual survival rate was 59 per cent.[36] From these figures the typical lifespan is only 3 years,[37] but the maximum age recorded is 15 years and 6 months for a bird in Switzerland.[38]

Feeding

Outside the breeding season, Eurasian chaffinches mainly eat seeds and other plant material that they find on the ground. They often forage in open country in large flocks. Common chaffinches seldom take food directly from plants and only very rarely use their feet for handling food.[39] During the breeding season, their diet switches to invertebrates, especially defoliating caterpillars. They forage in trees and also occasionally make short sallies to catch insects in the air.[39] The young are entirely fed with invertebrates which include caterpillars, aphids, earwigs, spiders and grubs (the larvae of beetles).[39]

Predators and parasites

The eggs and nestlings of the Eurasian chaffinch are predated by crows, Eurasian red and eastern grey squirrels, domestic cats and probably also by stoats and weasels. Clutches begun later in the spring suffer less predation, an effect that is believed to be due to the increased vegetation making nests more difficult to find.[40] Unlike the case for the closely related brambling, the common chaffinch is not parasitised by the common cuckoo.[41]

The protozoal parasite Trichomonas gallinae was known to infect pigeons and raptors, but beginning in Great Britain in 2005, carcasses of dead European greenfinches and common chaffinches were found to be infected with the parasite.[42] The disease spread and in 2008, infected carcasses were found in Norway, Sweden and Finland and a year later in Germany. The spread of the disease is believed to have been mediated by Eurasian chaffinches, as large numbers of the birds breed in northern Europe and winter in Great Britain.[43] In Great Britain, the number of infected carcasses recovered each year declined after a peak in 2006. There was a reduction in the number of European greenfinches but no significant decline in the overall number of common chaffinches.[44] A similar pattern occurred in Finland where, after the arrival of the disease in 2008, there was a reduction in the number of European greenfinches, but only a small change in the number of Eurasian chaffinches.[45]

Eurasian chaffinches can develop tumors on their feet and legs caused by the Fringilla coelebs papillomavirus.[46][47] The size of the papillomas range from a small nodule on a digit to a large growth involving both the foot and the leg. The disease is uncommon: in a 1973 study undertaken in the Netherlands, of around 25,000 common chaffinches screened, only 330 bore papillomas.[46]

Status

The Eurasian chaffinch has an extensive range, estimated at 7 million square kilometres (3.7 million square miles) and a large population including an estimated 130–240 million breeding pairs in Europe. Allowing for the birds breeding in Asia, the total population lies between 530 and 1,400 million individuals. There is no evidence of any serious overall decline in numbers, so the species is classified by the

Least Concern.[48]

Relationship to humans

A captive male chaffinch

The Eurasian chaffinch was once popular as a caged songbird and large numbers of wild birds were trapped and sold.[49] At the end of the 19th century, trapping even depleted the number of birds in London parks.[50] In 1882, the English publisher Samuel Orchart Beeton issued a guide on the care of caged birds and included the recommendation: "To parents and guardians plagued with a morose and sulky boy, my advice is, buy him a chaffinch."[49] Competitions were held where bets were placed on which caged common chaffinch would repeat its song the greatest number of times. The birds were sometimes blinded with a hot needle in the belief that this encouraged them to sing.[51] This practice is the subject of the poem The Blinded Bird by the English author Thomas Hardy, which contrasts the cruelty involved in blinding the birds with their zestful song.[52] In Great Britain, the practice of keeping Eurasian chaffinches as pets declined after the trapping of wild birds was outlawed by the Wild Birds Protection Acts of 1880 to 1896.[52][53]

The Eurasian chaffinch is still a popular pet bird in some European countries. In Belgium, the traditional sport of

vinkenzetting pits male Eurasian chaffinches against one another in a contest for the most bird calls in an hour.[54]

References

  1. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2018-2.RLTS.T22720030A155432370.en
    . Retrieved 12 November 2021.
  2. ^ a b Linnaeus, Carl (1758). Systema Naturæ per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis (in Latin). Vol. 1 (10th ed.). Holmiae (Stockholm): Laurentii Salvii. p. 179.
  3. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4
    .
  4. ^ "Chaffinch". American Heritage Dictionary. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Retrieved 25 November 2016.
  5. ISBN 978-0-500-23257-6
    .
  6. ^ "The Sherborne Missal - Pages 17 and 18". British Library. Retrieved 19 August 2013.
  7. ^ Turner, William (1903) [1544]. Turner on birds: a short and succinct history of the principal birds noticed by Pliny and Aristotle first published by Doctor William Turner, 1544 (in Latin and English). Translated by Evans, A.H. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 72–73. The Latin title of the 1544 edition was: Avium praecipuarum quarum apud Plinium et Aristotelem mentio est, brevis et succincta historia.
  8. ^ "sheld". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
  9. ^ a b Swainson, Charles (1885). Provincial names and folk lore of British birds. London: Trübner. pp. 62–63.
  10. ^ "alp". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
  11. ISBN 978-84-96553-68-2
    .
  12. ^ Gill, Frank; Donsker, David (eds.). "Finches, euphonias". World Bird List Version 5.3. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 20 August 2015.
  13. doi:10.2173/bow.comcha.01
    .
  14. PMID 19632343
    .
  15. hdl:10651/50493
    .
  16. ^ a b Cramp (1994), p. 448.
  17. ^ a b c Cramp (1994), pp. 467–468.
  18. ^ Newton (1972), p. 19.
  19. ^ a b c Cramp (1994), p. 469.
  20. ^ Cramp (1994), pp. 472–473.
  21. ^ Cramp (1994), p. 449.
  22. hdl:2268/162278
    .
  23. hdl:2268/204048
    .
  24. doi:10.1111/j.1474-919X.1958.tb07960.x
    .
  25. ^ Metzmacher, M. (1995). "La transmission du chant chez le Pinson des arbres (Fringilla c. coelebs): phase sensible et rôle des tuteurs chez les oiseaux captifs" (PDF). Alauda (in French). 63 (2): 123–134.
  26. ^ Cramp (1994), p. 450.
  27. JSTOR 1368385
    .
  28. ISBN 978-0-19-555885-2
    .
  29. ISBN 0-620-20731-0
    .
  30. ^ Cramp (1994), p. 457.
  31. ^ Newton (1972), p. 137.
  32. ^ a b c Cramp (1994), pp. 466–467.
  33. ^ Newton (1972), p. 141.
  34. ^ Newton (1972), pp. 141–142.
  35. ^ Newton 1972, p. 257, Appendix 11.
  36. doi:10.1080/00063659809461099
    .
  37. ^ "Chaffinch Fringilla coelebs [Linnaeus, 1758]". Bird Facts. British Trust for Ornithology. Retrieved 31 August 2023.
  38. ^ "European Longevity Records". Euring. Archived from the original on 2 June 2013. Retrieved 15 September 2013.
  39. ^ a b c Cramp 1994, pp. 455–456.
  40. ^ Newton (1972), p. 145.
  41. ^ Newton 1972, p. 28.
  42. PMID 20805869
    .
  43. S2CID 13343152
    .
  44. PMID 22966140
    .
  45. doi:10.1111/ibi.12028
    .
  46. ^
    PMID 4702127
    .
  47. PMID 12208979
    .
  48. ^ "Eurasian Chaffinch Fringilla coelebs". Species factsheet. BirdLife International. Retrieved 6 September 2013.
  49. ^ a b Beeton, Samuel Orchart (1862). Beeton's book of birds : showing how to manage them in sickness and in health. London: Self-published. pp. 261–274.
  50. ^ Hudson, William Henry (1898). Birds in London. London: Longmans, Green and Co. p. 198.
  51. ^ Albin, Eleazar (1737). A Natural History of English Song-birds. London: A. Bettesworth and C. Hitch. pp. 25–26.
  52. ^
    ISBN 978-0-7011-6907-7
    .
  53. ^ Marchant, James Robert Vernam; Watkins, Watkin (1897). Wild Birds Protection Acts, 1880-1896. London: R.H. Porter.
  54. ^ Dan, Bilefsky (21 May 2007). "One-Ounce Belgian Idols Vie for Most Tweets per Hour". The New York Times. Retrieved 15 August 2013.

Sources

Further reading

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Fringilla coelebs.
Wikispecies has information related to Fringilla coelebs.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Eurasian_chaffinch&oldid=1209161545"