Yellow canary

The yellow canary (Crithagra flaviventris) is a small passerine bird in the finch family. It is a resident breeder in much of the western and central regions of southern Africa and has been introduced to Ascension and St Helena islands.

This article is about the bird. For the 1943 film, see Yellow Canary (film). For the dye, see Canary Yellow. For the color, see Yellow.

Yellow canary
In Northern Cape, South Africa

Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Fringillidae
Subfamily: Carduelinae
Genus: Crithagra
Species:
C. flaviventris
Binomial name
Crithagra flaviventris
(Swainson, 1832)
Synonyms

Serinus flaviventris

Taxonomy

The yellow canary was formerly placed in the genus Serinus but phylogenetic analysis using mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequences found that the genus was polyphyletic.[2] The genus was therefore split and a number of species including the yellow canary were moved to the resurrected genus Crithagra.[3][4]

For an overview of finch phylogeny (including canaries) see the entry on finches.

Description

The yellow canary is typically 13 cm in length. The adult male colour ranges from almost uniform yellow in the northwest of its range to streaked, olive backed birds in the southeast. The underparts, rump and tail sides are yellow. The female has grey-brown upperparts, black wings with yellow flight feathers, and a pale supercilium. The underparts are white with brown streaking. The juvenile resembles the female, but has heavier streaking.

This species is easily distinguished from the yellow-fronted canary by its lack of black facial markings, and its bill is less heavy than that of other similar African Crithagra species.

The brimstone canary, with overlapping range, is a known confusion species.

Distribution and habitat

Its habitat is karoo and coastal or mountain valley scrub. It builds a compact cup nest in a scrub.

The yellow canary is a common and gregarious seedeater. Its call is chissick or cheree, and the song is a warbled zee-zeree-chereeo.

Male in Mokala National Park
gollark: I think he just dislikes ~90% of CC programs.
gollark: When it gets back up, I'm going to download potatOS from it and start hosting it off osmarks.tk or something.
gollark: Pastebin is seemingly down or not really working now, so ~90% of CC programs are now inaccessible.
gollark: At least 3 strings, even.
gollark: `debug`, sometimes.

References
  1. BirdLife International (2012). "Serinus flaviventris". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2012. Retrieved 26 November 2013.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  2. Zuccon, Dario; Prŷs-Jones, Robert; Rasmussen, Pamela C.; Ericson, Per G.P. (2012). "The phylogenetic relationships and generic limits of finches (Fringillidae)" (PDF). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 62 (2): 581–596. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2011.10.002. PMID 22023825.
  3. Gill, Frank; Donsker, David (eds.). "Finches, euphonias". World Bird List Version 5.2. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 5 June 2015.
  4. Swainson, William (1827). "On several forms in ornithology not hitherto defined". Zoological Journal. 3: 348.
  • Ian Sinclair, Phil Hockey and Warwick Tarboton, SASOL Birds of Southern Africa (Struik 2002) ISBN 1-86872-721-1
  • Clement, Harris and Davis, Finches and Sparrows by ISBN 0-7136-8017-2
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