The
Citril Finch is a small
songbirdA songbird is a bird belonging to the suborder Passeri of the perching birds . Another name that is sometimes seen as scientific or vernacular name is Oscines, from Latin oscen, "a songbird"...
, a member of the true
finchThe true finches are passerine birds in the family Fringillidae. They are predominantly seed-eating songbirds. Most are native to the Northern Hemisphere, but one subfamily is endemic to the Neotropics, one to the Hawaiian Islands, and one subfamily – monotypic at genus level – is found...
familyIn biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...
Fringillidae. For a long time, this cardueline finch was placed in the
genusIn biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...
SerinusThe genus Serinus is a large genus of birds in the finch family Fringillidae found mostly in the Afrotropical region with some outlying species in Europe and Asia. The genus contains several species groups including canaries, seedeaters and the African siskins...
, but it is apparently very closely related to the
European GoldfinchThe European Goldfinch or Goldfinch is a small passerine bird in the finch family.-Habitat and range:The goldfinch breeds across Europe, North Africa, and western and central Asia, in open, partially wooded lowlands. It is resident in the milder west of its range, but migrates from colder regions...
(
C. carduelis).
This
birdBirds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
is a resident breeder in the mountains of southwestern
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
from Spain to the
AlpsThe Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....
. Its northernmost breeding area is found in the
Black ForestThe Black Forest is a wooded mountain range in Baden-Württemberg, southwestern Germany. It is bordered by the Rhine valley to the west and south. The highest peak is the Feldberg with an elevation of 1,493 metres ....
of southwestern
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. Individuals recorded further north are probably escaped from captivity, as most such records are from some time ago. For example,
Staatliches Museum für Tierkunde DresdenThe State Museum of Zoology in Dresden is a natural history museum that houses 10,000-50,000 specimens, including skeletons and large insect collections. Many are types. The collection suffered war damage and whilst catalogued the database is not computerized. Loans are possible and material can...
specimen 582 is a first-year male shot supposedly in
SaxonyThe Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....
earlier than 1849; that museum's specimen 21956 was the skull of another Citril Finch presumably taken in Saxony 1915, but it was destroyed in
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Description and systematics
12 cm (not quite 5 in) long, the Citril Finch is greyish above, with a brown tinge to the back which also has black streaks. The underparts and the double wing bars are yellow. It shares with its relatives a bright face mask which in this species is also yellow.
Sexes are similar, although young females may be duller below, and juvenile birds – unlike in European
SerinusThe genus Serinus is a large genus of birds in the finch family Fringillidae found mostly in the Afrotropical region with some outlying species in Europe and Asia. The genus contains several species groups including canaries, seedeaters and the African siskins...
species – are brown, lacking any yellow or green in the plumage.
The
songBird vocalization includes both bird calls and bird songs. In non-technical use, bird songs are the bird sounds that are melodious to the human ear. In ornithology and birding, songs are distinguished by function from calls.-Definition:The distinction between songs and calls is based upon...
is a silvery twittering resembling that of the
European GoldfinchThe European Goldfinch or Goldfinch is a small passerine bird in the finch family.-Habitat and range:The goldfinch breeds across Europe, North Africa, and western and central Asia, in open, partially wooded lowlands. It is resident in the milder west of its range, but migrates from colder regions...
(
C. carduelis) and that of the
European SerinThe European Serin, or just Serin is the smallest European species of the family of finches and is closely related to the Canary. Its diet consists mainly of a combination of buds and seeds.-Description:...
(
Serinus serinus). The main call is a
tee-ee quite similar to the
Eurasian SiskinThe Eurasian Siskin is a small passerine bird in the finch family Fringillidae. It is also called the European Siskin, Common Siskin or just Siskin. Other names include Black-headed Goldfinch, barley bird and aberdevine. It is very common throughout Europe and Asia...
(
C. spinus).
The
Corsican FinchThe Corsican Finch is a bird in the finch family, Fringillidae.It was formerly regarded a subspecies of the Citril Finch, but it differs in morphology and vocalizations as well as mtDNA sequence and they are now considered distinct...
(
C. corsicana) is regarded as a
subspeciesSubspecies in biological classification, is either a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, ora taxonomic unit in that rank . A subspecies cannot be recognized in isolation: a species will either be recognized as having no subspecies at all or two or more, never just one...
of the Citril Finch, but it differs in
morphologyIn biology, morphology is a branch of bioscience dealing with the study of the form and structure of organisms and their specific structural features....
and vocalizations as well as mtDNA
sequenceThe sequence or primary structure of a nucleic acid is the composition of atoms that make up the nucleic acid and the chemical bonds that bond those atoms. Because nucleic acids, such as DNA and RNA, are unbranched polymers, this specification is equivalent to specifying the sequence of...
, so it is also considered a distinct species by some authors.
Ecology
The Citril Finch differs from the Corsican Finch
C. corsicanaThe Corsican Finch is a bird in the finch family, Fringillidae.It was formerly regarded a subspecies of the Citril Finch, but it differs in morphology and vocalizations as well as mtDNA sequence and they are now considered distinct...
in
habitatA habitat is an ecological or environmental area that is inhabited by a particular species of animal, plant or other type of organism...
selection. While the mainland Citril Finch is rather restricted to
subalpineThe subalpine zone is the biotic zone immediately below tree line around the world. Species that occur in this zone depend on the location of the zone on the Earth, for example, Snow Gum in Australia, or Subalpine Larch, Mountain Hemlock and Subalpine Fir in western North America.Trees in the...
coniferous forests and
alpineAlpine climate is the average weather for a region above the tree line. This climate is also referred to as mountain climate or highland climate....
meadows, the insular Corsican Finch may be found in different habitats from sea level to the highest mountain slopes. The Citril Finch
nestA bird nest is the spot in which a bird lays and incubates its eggs and raises its young. Although the term popularly refers to a specific structure made by the bird itself—such as the grassy cup nest of the American Robin or Eurasian Blackbird, or the elaborately woven hanging nest of the...
s mainly in conifers such as
pinePines are trees in the genus Pinus ,in the family Pinaceae. They make up the monotypic subfamily Pinoideae. There are about 115 species of pine, although different authorities accept between 105 and 125 species.-Etymology:...
s (
Pinus) and
spruceA spruce is a tree of the genus Picea , a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the Family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal regions of the earth. Spruces are large trees, from tall when mature, and can be distinguished by their whorled branches and conical...
s (
Picea) while the Corsican Finch uses also lower bushes such as
Tree HeathErica arborea, the tree heath, is a shrub or small evergreen tree found mostly in the macchia-matorral-maquis shrublands, dry evergreen scrublands, surrounding the Mediterranean Basin and west to Portugal and the Canary and Madeira Islands....
(
Erica arborea),
juniperJunipers are coniferous plants in the genus Juniperus of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on taxonomic viewpoint, there are between 50-67 species of juniper, widely distributed throughout the northern hemisphere, from the Arctic, south to tropical Africa in the Old World, and to the...
(
Juniperus) and
brambleBrambles are thorny plants of the genus Rubus, in the rose family . Bramble fruit is the fruit of any such plant, including the blackberry and raspberry. The word comes from Germanic *bram-bezi, whence also German Brombeere , Dutch Braam and French framboise...
(
Rubus).
Ranging more widely than its equally common eastern relative, the Citril Finch is classified as a Species of
Least ConcernLeast Concern is an IUCN category assigned to extant taxon or lower taxa which have been evaluated but do not qualify for any other category. As such they do not qualify as threatened, Near Threatened, or Conservation Dependent...
by the IUCN.
Further reading
(2003): The Howard and Moore complete check list of the birds of the world. Dickinson EC, London. (2006): Absence of insular density inflation in Corsican Finches
Carduelis [citrinella] corsicanus.
Acta Ornithologica 41(2): 171-175. http://www.miiz.waw.pl/periodicals/acta-ornithologica/abstracts/ao_41_2.pdf (2007) Microgeographic variation in Citril Finch
Carduelis citrinella abundance as a consequence of resource availability.
European Journal of Wildlife Research 53: 29-34. (2007) Seasonal variation in the diet of citril finches
Carduelis citrinella: are they specialists or generalists?
European Journal of Wildlife Research 53. (2006): Macrogeographic variations in food choice of mainland citril finches
Carduelis [citrinella] citrinella versus insular Corsican (citril) finches
Carduelis [citrinella] corsicanus.
Journal of Ornithology 147(3): 441-447.
(HTML abstract, first page image) (2005): Inter-locality variation in reproductive success of the citril finch
Serinus citrinella.
Journal of Ornithology 146: 137-140.
External links