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There are lots of wonderful exotic birds in our world. Books, magazines and television shows show us all sorts of marvelous, shimmering species from far-flung jungle climes. Yet, show any one of our humble garden birds to a bird-loving traveler from outside Europe, and they too will show similar excitement to us at seeing such beautiful creatures. Imagine then, a wonderful hybrid of those two, if you will; a bird both familiar and fantastical. You need to travel for it, but not to the other side of the planet, indeed not too far outside of the realms of the regular European holiday hotspot for us Brits: the Tenerife Blue Chaffinch.

I recently visited the beautiful Canary Island of Tenerife for the first time and, unlike the sun seekers, golfers and partiers, I was keen to explore the wilder side of the island and find some of the beautiful endemic species that call this and the other islands that make up the archipelago home. Tenerife is the largest of the Canary Islands and home to the volcanic Mount Teide, officially Spain’s highest peak, since the islands are an overseas territory. The archipelago lies around sixty miles off the southwest coast of Morocco, in the Atlantic. This position means that the islands have a subtropical climate, and being cut off from a major land mass has allowed for speciation to occur, not only across the archipelago as a whole but between islands too.

This is most notable in the plants, which, being largely sedentary, have far more diversity than other groups. However, there are several endemic butterflies and birds too. One which I was particularly keen to see was the Tenerife Blue Chaffinch, Fringilla teydea, one of the official symbols of the island. As with many bird species, the males are the real showstoppers. They are larger than a ‘regular’ Chaffinch, with a thicker bill, a more uniform blue-grey plumage and no dark cap.

On researching before travelling, I established that they may be difficult to see since they are uncommon – statistically speaking, they are classified on the Near Threatened list by the IUCN. I also learnt that they primarily eat the seeds of the Canary Island Pine, Pinus canariensis, and that the most likely areas to find them, therefore, would be in the coniferous forest.

When my husband and I reached the island, we hired a car and explored a variety of habitats, enjoying all manner of species from the Canaries that take their name from the archipelago to the endemic Chiffchaff and even slightly more distant views of a Laurel Pigeon over the endemic Laurel Forest.

Early one morning, we decided to head for some pine forest on the slopes of Mount Teide. On the way, we passed a sign for a spot that we had overlooked on the map, but that looked interesting and pulled in on a whim. We had the whole place to ourselves and ventured out for a short walk. As we looped back round to the car, I spotted movement on the forest floor, and there, among the fallen needles, was a Blue Chaffinch. He was soon joined by several others, a flock of just over half a dozen in total, with a single male Canary Island Chaffinch among them – looking like a Chaffinch as we know it but rendered in colours just a little too bright and with a cap almost black.

We stayed and watched them for a little while until more people arrived, and the moment was gone, but it had been blissful. After that, we saw them everywhere we stopped that day! Perhaps we were just lucky, but it felt truly magical, and I was utterly enamored by these familiar but unfamiliar birds.