August 2024

August 2024

Until just a few years ago, the occurrence of ‘Siberian Chiffchaff’ in Britain was monitored in the report on scarce migrant birds. With increasing numbers – perhaps at least in part due to an increased confidence in identifying the taxon – the subspecies was removed from the scarce migrants report. Although we now have a fairly good handle on the status of Siberian Chiffchaff in Britain, questions still remain as to how frequently the subspecies abietinus of Common Chiffchaff occurs in Britain – and perhaps, although it might be a bit of a stretch, whether some of the other less-well-known, southeastern-breedis subspecies are turning up. Indeed, genetic sampling has shown that at least two such birds have strayed to Europe. The situation is complicated yet further in areas of the Middle East, where the full suite of Common Chiffchaff subspecies could occur, with Siberian Chiffchaff arguably being the most visually and vocally distinctive. Through genetic sampling, patterns of occurrence of subspecies are beginning to emerge but, as our second main paper this month shows, there’s still a lot to learn and a lot of discoveries yet to be made.

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