Common chiffchaff obvious wing bars; they include the willow, Bonelli's, wood and plain leaf warblers. The common chiffchaff has three still commonly accepted subspecies, together with some from the Iberian Peninsula, the Canary Islands, and the Caucasus which are now more often treated as full species. The common chiffchaff's English name is onomatopoeic, referring to the repetitive "chiff-chaff" song of the European subspecies. There are similar names in some other European languages, such as the Dutch "Tjiftjaf", the German "Zilpzalp" and Welsh "siff-saff". The binomial name is of Greek origin; "Phylloscopus" comes from "phyllon"/φυλλον, "leaf", and "skopeo"/σκοπεω, "to look at" or "to
Eastern Canary Islands chiffchaff Eastern Canary Islands chiffchaff The eastern Canary Islands chiffchaff or Lanzarote Island chiffchaff ("Phylloscopus canariensis exsul") is an extinct subspecies of the Canary Islands chiffchaff endemic to the island of Lanzarote – and possibly also Fuerteventura – in the Canary Islands, Spain. The eastern Canary Islands chiffchaff was more chestnut-backed and shorter-winged than the western Canary Islands chiffchaff, "Phylloscopus canariensis canariensis". These birds were formerly considered subspecies of the common chiffchaff but separated (Clement & Helbig, 1998; Sangster "et al.", 2001) due to their morphological, bioacoustical, and mtDNA sequence differences (Helbig "et al.", 1996). Apparently this subspecies was already very