A recording of the Oxford Iberian Chiffchaff is now on Xeno-Canto [David Darrell-Lambert, XC411346. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/411346]:
Mick Cunningham made a comment, here, about the Oxford bird perhaps lacking the “wheeet-wheeet” part of the song typically heard by Iberian Chiffchaff. Now we have a recording and a sonogram from Xeno-Canto, I can hear and see what he means. Firstly, listen to an Iberian Chiffchaff recorded in Spain [Luis Gracia, XC409152. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/409152].
From having listened to a dozen recordings from Spain, to my ear there are three parts to a typical Iberian Chiffchaff song, always in this order:
- The “chiff-chaff” part.
- The “wheet-wheet” part.
- The rapid sequence of descending notes at the end.
We can see these on the sonogram of the bird recorded in Spain (labelled by me):
The Oxford bird’s sonogram looks like this (again, labelled by me):
To my ear, and from the sonogram, there is no “wheet-wheet” middle part to the song of the Oxford bird. Now, I am no expert on bird song, sonograms or Iberian Chiffchaffs. In fact I actively want this bird to be an Iberian Chifchaff for deeply held personal reasons: I have not seen one in Oxfordshire before. But I have not found a recording on Xeno-canto of Iberian Chiffchaff from Spain that does not have at least one “wheet-wheet” in the middle section. Admittedly, I have not listened to all the recordings, I have a family to keep happy and full time job. But somebody out there with more time and expertise must be able to help!
To my mind, this leaves four possible options:
- The Oxford bird is an Iberian Chiffchaff with a variant song that I have not come across in online recordings.
- The Oxford bird is an Iberian Chiffchaff with an atypical song (see also this video of the bird singing, again without the “wheet-wheet” part)
- The Oxford bird is not an Iberian Chiffchaff (what it is, is another matter – a hybrid, a collybita with a misspent youth in Spain, who knows?)
- I should spend more time on my day job.
You decide! Thanks again to Mick Cunningham for noticing this feature.
Curiouser and curiouser
Thank you for this post. I have recently been sent a sound file of a potential Iberian which sounded fairly similar to this Oxfordshire bird and also lacked the “weep weep” element to the song.
Hi Mark – thanks for this, it would be interesting to hear such recordings if you have a link? The consensus of opinion from the bird news organisations and from the Oxfordshire Rarities Committee is that the Oxford bird is atypical for Iberian Chiffchaff in both appearance and song. I believe an article on this bird is in preparation for the April monthly report on the Oxon Bird Log, so let’s see what is published. All very educational stuff though, cheers, Tom
Hi Tom
If you can access my email via these comments then please email me so I can send you sound files of the recent Bradford Chiffchaff. I have the original file and one I have cleaned up in Audacity software. Although I’m not the owner of the sound file I have permission to pass it on to those interested.
Regards
Mark