Appearance:

Small and secretive warbler, usually discovered by the contact call. Broad, yellow/whitish wing-bars framed in black, and dark tertials with pale fringes gives the species a contrasting plumage. Long and strong yellow supercilium (lacking the orange base of Pallas' Leaf Warbler). No central crown-stripe. Slightly smaller than a Chiffchaff, with smaller bill and shorter tail. Rump same colour as back (as opposed to Pallas'), and overall greener and more strikingly coloured than Hume's Leaf Warbler (but beware individual variation).

Sound:

Contact call and song both distinct. Contact call a very high-pitched "zeeoooee", with pitch rapidly dropping in the middle, and ending on a quickly rising note. Song an ornamented, drawn out, slow-motion version of the contact call, with similar timbre and pitch.

Contact call:

Distribution:

Xeno-canto: map

Ecology:

Birdlife ecology

Links:

Observation.org Latest observations

Video IBC

Image search Flickr NB! May give other species

Sound search at Xeno-canto

Featherbase

CC

CC-photo:Langham Birder, Licence,Link.

Sounds:Recorded by Jelmer Poelstra,http://www.xeno-canto.org ,CC license

Appearance:

Large and robust warbler with plain plumage, except for the characteristic cap (black in males, rufous in females and juveniles). Upperparts greyish brown and underparts pale grey. Vent white. No white in tail, as opposed to all other black-capped Sylvias in the region. Easily confused with Garden Warbler if the cap is not seen.

Sound:

Song pleasing, varied and loud. Sometimes very similar to Garden Warbler. A typical phrase starts with soft, staccato chattering and mimicry, which after a few seconds changes to a much louder, pure and resonant stream of notes for about 3-5 seconds. No fixed motif, but may end phrases with recurring notes. Often deviates from the characteristic type of song, and identification from song alone may be impossible. May sing first part of song for extended periods without ever reaching the characteristic ending. Alarm call a hard "check", similar to Lesser White-throat. Sometimes with an additional hoarse and nasal "cherrrr".

Alarm call, song:

Distribution:

Wikipedia: map (se also Xeno-canto below)

Ecology:

Birdlife ecology

Links:

Observation.org Latest observations

Video IBC

Image search Flickr NB! May give other species

Sound search at Xeno-canto

Featherbase

CC