Common Chiffchaff

• Its English name, chiffchaff, reproduces its song literally: a repeated, irregular "chiff-chaff" that is the surest way to identify it.
• It takes in up to a third of its own weight in insects every day.
• Ringing has revealed that males and females choose different habitats in winter.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (bird)

Habitat & environment

Open woodland and wooded and scrubby habitats, often near water. As a breeder it is limited to the Pyrenees, Catalonia, the riverside groves of the northern meseta, the Sistema Central and the Valencian Community; as a winter visitor it occupies the whole peninsula and the Balearics

Size at birth

The chicks hatch altricial and completely helpless

Gestation / incubation

13-15 days, by the female alone. The chicks fledge at 14-16 days

Litter / clutch size

3-9 white eggs, plain or speckled, in a domed nest with a side entrance placed very close to the ground. Two clutches a season between March and July

Sources consulted: SEO/BirdLife (ficha y III Atlas de las aves en época de reproducción en España); IUCN Red List; Asturnatura; III Atlas (ficha mosquitero común); Balmori, Cuesta y Caballero 2002, Ardeola 49(1); Cantos 1992; Clement 2015, Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive; Iberfauna (MNCN-CSIC)

Best time: October to March is when it is most abundant, with the mass arrival of wintering birds from central Europe