The wild island canary is a much less gaudy bird than many of its domestic breeds — its feathers dirty yellow and dark green — and its song, though less varied than those of its domestic forms, is still complex and melodious.
Wild canaries were brought to Spain in the 15th century, shortly after their namesake islands were first explored by Europeans (the islands themselves named after dogs, with the name Canaria coming from "canis," Latin for dog). For their liveliness, their song, and their exoticism, the canaries quickly became very popular.
In the 17th century, Spain held a monopoly over canary breeding, selling them to Portugal, France, Italy, and England. One story goes that a Spanish ship crashed off the coast of Italy, and the canaries aboard the ship escaped to the Italian island of Elba where they interbred with native serins. And the Italians, from this hybrid stock, began breeding them too. A more likely scenario, however, was that a few Spanish canary breeders made an error while sexing their birds and accidentally sent off a few females with the males.
Over the centuries, canaries were fashioned into many different breeds. They were bred and taught to mimic the songs of other birds, reproduce the babbling of water, and ventriloquising a quiet tune with a closed beak. They were bred to be cartoonishly yellow, bright blue, or just plain white. Some breeds would be stretched, others stooped like vultures, while others still sported goofy “bowl-cuts.”
In the late 19th century, following a series of deadly, carbon-monoxide-related mining accidents in Britain, it was proposed that some small animals be carried by miners going about their work. By the turn of the 20th century, canaries were carried into coal mines, trapped in a cage, hung at the miner’s hip. Their job was to detect poisonous gases like carbon-monoxide, exhibiting signs of distress before a person would feel any symptoms — acting as an early warning system for miners.
By 1981, “electronic noses” — digital gas detectors — had become common and reliable, and the British government began phasing out the use of canaries in mines. In Britain, the use of canaries in coal mines was officially outlawed in 1986.
Learn more about the island and domestic canary, and other types of “indicator species,” on my website here!

I don’t have anything to add but to say this is just the perfect awwwducational post
The first video of the European serin on ebird you linked is wonderful: the bird opens a grass seed stalk and starts chowing down. I’ve seen birds get fed thousands of times, wild and domestic, but not being a birder I’ve never seen a bird feed itself. Didn’t even know what I was looking at at first!
Sources:
Birds of the World
eBird
Birdlife Datazone
Seasonal Changes in the Song Pattern of the Non-Domesticated Island Canary (Serinus canaria), a Field Study by Stefan Leitner, et al.
Omlet – Guide to Canary Song Training
Strain differences in hearing in song canaries by Jane A. Brown, et al.
Pet Corner – Singing Canary Breeds
MAP Ecology – National Canary Contest in Essaouira, Morocco
Domestication of the canary, Serinus canaria - the change from green to yellow ·by T. R. BIRKHEAD, et al.
PocketBook – Canary domestication
Gale Review – Canaries in the coal mine history
Gale Primary Source 1 – Historical article on mining safety and canaries
Gale Primary Source 2 – Coal mining and gas detection account
Gale Primary Source 3 – Industrial safety source on miners and canaries
Gale Primary Source 4 – Report on mining practices and animal use
Smithsonian Magazine – History of canaries in coal mines
Britannica – Mine Gas
A Survey on Gas Sensing Technology by Xiao Liu, et al.
Museum Crush – Canary resuscitation devices in mining
Birds of the World – European serin
My favorite among these many sources is the canary resuscitation box.
The canary on the bottom right looks like it's been in a coal mine.
TIL there were domestic canaries in the first place. I always assumed they were basically the same thing as their wild countrrpart, like having a pet snake. Nothing bred specifically like one might see in dogs or cats.
There were thousands of them. bred commercially for the pet trade. My mother and grandmother each had a succession of canaries. THey all had happy lives, at least for the domestic canaries of the time. They got regular vet care and were fed high quality foods.
have you heard of pigeons?
Same thing, except we don't eat canaries.
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Oh I sort of meant that I never realized they were ever domesticated in the first place haha. Since even though a dog and a wolf are the same species, they differ in terms of behavior (i.e. dogs being of course, much more tamer because they were bred to be that way), or jungle fowls vs the domesticated chicken.
In the case of canaries, I kind of assumed they just grabbed/poached the birds from the wild or a breeder who doesn’t breed for any specific purpose like visual markings or behaviors, just more babies.
Dogs are actually unusual among domesticated animals in being behaviourally massively different from the wild form (probably because they were specifically selected for it); behavioural differences are much smaller in species that were selected for other traits during domestication, or in self-domesticates like cats.
When I was girl my mother had a canary who filled the house with song at all hours of the day. I feel ashamed now thinking of him in his green wire cage, only being free to fly the house on the days when he got his much desired baths.
He was a cheerful mix of yellow and orange. He never worked in coal mine thankfully and it's shameful to think that any of his ancestors did.
I'm happy to hear that there are still canaries singing from the branches of trees in the Canary Islands
IIRC the canary is named after the islands, which were named for their wild dog population
That makes sense now that I'm thinking of it.
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Imagine if Serina (huge but highly problematic spec-evo project) used wild rather than domestic canaries