Endangered
Gran Canaria blue chaffinch
Fringilla polatzeki
Gran Canaria blue chaffinch is a perching bird in the family Fringillidae (order Passeriformes) — Fringilla polatzeki, recorded as Endangered and tied to Spain.
Appearance
It also differs in having two white bands in the wings, and a whiter belly, with less blue shades, than Tenerife blue chaffinch. Females are a dull grey-brown.
The Gran Canaria blue chaffinch is slightly smaller than the Tenerife blue chaffinch. Males weigh 27–29 g and females 26–28 g, compared to 31–33 g and 28–30 g respectively for Tenerife blue chaffinch.
Range and habitat
This bird is found only in the highlands of Gran Canaria, mainly in the Inagua Natural Reserve. The species' primary habitat is mountain Canary Island pine (Pinus canariensis) forest at around 1,000 m altitude. It is most common in mature pine forest areas with dense, old trees.
It is endemic to Gran Canaria in Spain's Canary Islands.
Habitat labels include Inagua and Pinus canariensis.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
Breeding from the end of April to late July or early August, it builds a nest from pine needles and broom branches and lays two eggs. This bird breeding success is low with the cause of predation, mostly by the Great Spotted Woodpecker.
In crisis
Gran Canaria blue chaffinch is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Gran Canaria blue chaffinch, Wikidata item Q22704092. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
