Short-toed Treecreeper (Certhia brachydactyla) [XC148864]
by Jack Berteau from PN de Monfrague, Extremadura, Spain (song)
Short-toed Treecreeper (Certhia brachydactyla) [XC623450]
by Stanislas Wroza from Bierbeek, Vlaams-Brabant, Vlaanderen, Belgium (call, subsong)
Subspecies
Closest to American Treecreeper (Certhia americana). Geographical variation slight and largely clinal, but northern African subspecies mauritanica exhibits moderately well-marked genetic and also vocal differences from European subspecies and may merit separate species status. Nominate subspecies and megarhynchos intergrade in central Pyrenees, western and southern Spain and southern Portugal. Racial affiliation of birds in Caucasus uncertain, currently included in stresemanni. Similarly, those on larger Ionian Is (Greece) placed with dorotheae. Proposed subspecies rossocaucasica (described from Sochi-Khosta region of north-western Caucasus) possibly worthy of recognition; harterti (described from north-western Turkey) is considered a synonym of nominate.
The following 7 subspecies are recognised:
megarhynchos Brehm, CL, 1831 - Channel Is, western and northern France, Belgium, Netherlands and western Germany south to north-western Spain and Portugal.
brachydactyla Brehm, 1820 - Southern Denmark, Poland and extreme southern Lithuania south to eastern and south-eastern France, Spain (except north-west), central Germany, Italy, Sicily, Greece (except south), Hungary, western Ukraine, very locally Romania, and western Turkey.
mauritanica Witherby, 1905 - Morocco (south to Moyen and Haut Atlas), Algeria (south to Atlas Saharien and Aurí¨s range) and north-western Tunisia.
dorotheae Hartert, 1904 - Southern Greece (and most of larger Ionian Is), Crete and Cyprus.
stresemanni Kummerlöwe and Niethammer, 1934 - Central Turkey. Also foot of western Caucasus on Black Sea coast (eastern at least to north-central Georgia).