© A. R. Dean

About 50 Siberian Chiffchaffs were logged in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan between May 8th and 21st, 2008. All but one were decidedly ‘brown and buff’ and with strikingly black legs and upper surface to the feet (see photo above). Thus, they matched the established plumage hues of tristis or 'fulvescens'. The exception was a somewhat paler individual at Kanshengel but this was self-evidently a bleached and faded bird, which had not completed the spring body moult. Many birds were heard singing and calling, and all vocalisations were typical (call: a plaintive and near monosyllabic ‘eeep’, slightly shrill (sounding as though it ‘needed a drop of oil’) and recalling call of Dunnock; song: a fluent warble of closely-spaced and near-disyllabic notes: ‘chivvi-tee, chooee, chivvi-tee, chooee-tee, chivvy’, rising and falling and much more varied and liquid than western chiffchaff song.)

Chiffchaffs with features intermediate between tristis and abietinus are encountered in the zone in which their ranges overlap, west from the southern Urals (Marova & Leonovich 1993, Lindholm 2008).  Such individuals are deemed likely to be intergrades, for which the name 'riphaeus' is appropriate (Snigirewski 1931; see also Ticehurst 1938). No evidently intermediate individuals (and no distinctly  'grey and white' individuals) were encountered among migrant tristis during this visit to Kazakhstan, though they may be expected to occur on occasions. See Siberian Chiffchaff : discussion and photo gallery for more details on tristis.