Just Yellow-browed Warbler? Bandarban, Bangladesh January 2020 (1 Viewer)

[Seth Miller]

I'm guessing this is just a Yellow-browed, but it's always felt just a little off to me so thought I check to confirm.
All photos of the same individual, sorry for the not so great angles and photo quality.
From Bandarban area (SE hill tracts) of Bangladesh this January.

 

[KenM]

With all the “similar” type small wing-barred Phylloscs. in that part of the world during Jan, I would like better images in order to make a fair comment Seth.

Cheers

 

[Deb Burhinus]

Looks good for a Yellow-browed Warbler to me.

 

[Deb Burhinus]

just to add, (considering Ken’s comments) if there’s another warbler in the region that looks like this, it doesn’t deserve to be a separate species from a YBW

 

[johnallcock]

Agree with Yellow-browed. There is enough visible here to support ID and rule out other species - two wing bars, no central crown stripe, pale fringes to tertials, dark base to secondaries, pale legs and bill base.

With those features, the only real confusion species would be Hume's (especially mandellii), but the bare part colour and green of the upperparts favour Yellow-browed.

 

[Deb Burhinus]

Agree with Yellow-browed. There is enough visible here to support ID and rule out other species - two wing bars, no central crown stripe, pale fringes to tertials, dark base to secondaries, pale legs and bill base.

With those features, the only real confusion species would be Hume's (especially mandellii).

How does mandellii from humei? The Western birds are altogether much duller than YBW and with a much weaker second bar so quite easy to separate.

 

[Deb Burhinus]

I think this answers my question but according to this article, mandellii is a geographically isolated ssp of C.China wintering in SE Asia so I’m not sure it would be a confusion sp. in Bangladesh?!

https://www.turnstones.org/post/2018/04/13/warbler-waffle-a-scoop

 

[johnallcock]

How does mandellii from humei? The Western birds are altogether much duller than YBW and with a much weaker second bar so quite easy to separate.

Mandellii is similar to humei but tends to be slightly greener and often with paler legs and bill, so it's slightly closer in appearance to (worn) Yellow-browed than humei is. Call and song are different from Yellow-browed of course.
I'm not suggesting this is mandellii, I still think it's Yellow-browed. I mentioned Hume's because the features I'd listed earlier in my post should quickly rule out all other Phylloscs (as was Ken's concern).

As for range, Birds of the World lists it wintering in NE India (Meghalaya and S Assam hills) so a bird in Bangladesh seems feasible to me.

 

[andyb39]

The solid black centres to the greater coverts and largely pale bill would probably also rule out mandellii.

 

[Seth Miller]

Thanks for confirming, everyone

 

[Deb Burhinus]

Mandellii is similar to humei but tends to be slightly greener and often with paler legs and bill, so it's slightly closer in appearance to (worn) Yellow-browed than humei is. Call and song are different from Yellow-browed of course.
I'm not suggesting this is mandellii, I still think it's Yellow-browed. I mentioned Hume's because the features I'd listed earlier in my post should quickly rule out all other Phylloscs (as was Ken's concern).

As for range, Birds of the World lists it wintering in NE India (Meghalaya and S Assam hills) so a bird in Bangladesh seems feasible to me.

Thanks John.

I found the article that I linked quite instructive and certainly wouldn’t have read it if you hadn’t raised the issue of eastern ssp of Hume’s. Of course, ‘wear’ as an issue for confusion might be less likely to arise in winter when birds are still quite fresh but I imagine in your neck of the woods it is potentially more of a confusion species. I had of course immediately ruled out humei before iding this as YBW as is is par for the course with YBW whenever I see them in the field and sometimes good familiarity with a species is enough not to have any real concern about its ID. (Separating humei from mandellii might be more of a headache than Hume’s from YBW by all accounts.)

 

[BirdsOfEurope]

Looks good for a Yellow-browed Warbler to me.

Agreed.