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Pallas's Grasshopper Warbler - BirdForum Opus

Photo © by jbpixels
Kuala Selangor, Malaysia, December 2019

Alternative names: Pallas' Warbler; Rusty-rumped Warbler

Helopsaltes certhiola

Locustella certhiolus

Identification

Photo by Kshounish Sankar Ray
Joka, Kolkata, West Bengal, India, March 2010

13–14 cm (5-5½ in)

  • Streaked brown back
  • Whitish-grey underparts
  • Whitish tips to tail feathers

Sexes identical

Similar Species

Juvenile – Rusty-rumped Warbler
Photo © by See Toh
Lorong Halus, Singapore, 18 February 2012

Similar to the Common Grasshopper Warbler.

Distribution

Asia. Breeds in Siberia. Migratory, wintering from India east to Indonesia.

Vagrant to the British Isles, particularly Shetland.

Taxonomy

Photo by WickWelsh
Gun Guluut, Mongolia, June 2017

This is a polytypic species[1] consisting of 4 subspecies.

Subspecies

  • H. c. rubescens:
  • Northern Siberia to Sea of Okhotsk and Kamchatka; winters to southern India
  • H. c. sparsimstriatus:
  • Southern Siberia to northern Altai Mountains, Sayan Mountains and Transbaikalia
  • H. c. certhiola:
  • H. c. centralasiae:

An additional subspecies minor is generally considered invalid[1].

Habitat

Tall grass with some thicker vegetation, usually close to water in bogs or wet meadows.

Behaviour

Diet

Their diet consists mostly of insects. The feed mainly on the ground, generally in a horizontal pose, running and creeping around like a mouse.

Breeding

The clutch consists of 4 to 7 eggs which are laid in a nest on the ground in grass.

The male rises to about 10m in a brief song flight.

References

  1. Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2021. The eBird/Clements checklist of Birds of the World: v2021. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
  2. Lepage D. (2021) [Avibase - https://avibase.bsc-eoc.org/species.jsp?avibaseid=4C3CF429E3FEFBA2 ]. Retrieved 17 July 2021
  3. Pearson, D. (2020). Pallas's Grasshopper-Warbler (Locustella certhiola), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.pagwar1.01
  1. Wilipedia

Recommended Citation

External Links

GSearch checked for 2020 platform.1

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