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Asian Warbler ID Help (1 Viewer)

taurus1971

Well-known member
I observed this warbler on a Korean island in May. This warbler has two wingbars and no spots on the base of the secondary. This warbler does not appear to be a Yellow-browed Warbler or Pallas's leaf Warbler. Who is it?
 

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First of all, this warbler's bill is quite long and thick. And the lower mandible is too bright. And there are no spots on the base of the secondary. Yellow-browed Warbler does not exhibit this pattern when worn out in spring. During this period, yellow-browed warbler shows worn plumage, but this warbler also has a plumage pattern that is not common.
 
Unfortunately, I haven't heard this warbler's call.
At this time there were a large number of Yellow-browed warblers and a small number of Hume's warblers in the same place.

But isn't Hume's a vagrant in Korea? I was also wondering what makes you think these birds are mandellii. This taxon has a limited breeding range and winters in NE India and nearby parts of SE Asia, as far as I know.

I need to get your webpage translated - it looks really interesting.
 
This looks like a worn Yellow-browed Warbler to me.

The wing pattern shows two broad wingbars, with pale fringes to the tertials and dark centres to the greater coverts. The pale fringes to the tertials are less obvious than in an autumn bird, due to wear, but they are still distinctive and rule out most Phylloscopus species.

Although the bases to the secondaries are not as dark as on many Yellow-browed, there are still slightly dark bases on the inner secondaries.

Species of the Pallas's Warbler complex and Chinese Leaf Warbler can be ruled out by the lack of a central crown stripe or pale rump.

Despite the earlier comment, personally I would say that the bill structure supports Yellow-browed (or Hume's) over other species.

This combination of features (two wing bars, pale fringes to tertials, central crown stripe, green rump) leaves only Yellow-browed and Hume's as candidates. I would expect Hume's to have darker bill and legs, with less green in the plumage (even mandellii). Overall, this looks very like Yellow-browed Warblers that I would expect to see in Hong Kong in spring.
 
I need to get your webpage translated - it looks really interesting.

Andy,
I'm using Chrome; on the address bar (on its extreme right-hand side) I have a small icon just to left of the favourites' star icon and clicking on it makes a small window to pop up with automatic translate settings: it will translate the whole page for you immediately.
 
Andy,
I'm using Chrome; on the address bar (on its extreme right-hand side) I have a small icon just to left of the favourites' star icon and clicking on it makes a small window to pop up with automatic translate settings: it will translate the whole page for you immediately.

Yes, I did that, thanks.
 
But isn't Hume's a vagrant in Korea? I was also wondering what makes you think these birds are mandellii. This taxon has a limited breeding range and winters in NE India and nearby parts of SE Asia, as far as I know.

I need to get your webpage translated - it looks really interesting.

In Korea, a small number of P. h. mandellii migrate through the island in spring. P. h. humei has a small number of records, but I haven't observed it yet.

The webpage is written in Korean because I am very poor at English. If you use Google Chrome, can some of them be translated?
 
This looks like a worn Yellow-browed Warbler to me.

The wing pattern shows two broad wingbars, with pale fringes to the tertials and dark centres to the greater coverts. The pale fringes to the tertials are less obvious than in an autumn bird, due to wear, but they are still distinctive and rule out most Phylloscopus species.

Although the bases to the secondaries are not as dark as on many Yellow-browed, there are still slightly dark bases on the inner secondaries.

Species of the Pallas's Warbler complex and Chinese Leaf Warbler can be ruled out by the lack of a central crown stripe or pale rump.

Despite the earlier comment, personally I would say that the bill structure supports Yellow-browed (or Hume's) over other species.

This combination of features (two wing bars, pale fringes to tertials, central crown stripe, green rump) leaves only Yellow-browed and Hume's as candidates. I would expect Hume's to have darker bill and legs, with less green in the plumage (even mandellii). Overall, this looks very like Yellow-browed Warblers that I would expect to see in Hong Kong in spring.

Thanks, johnallcock

I also think this is a very likely Yellow-browed Warbler. I felt that YBW the first time I saw this warbler in the field.
However, when I looked closely at this warbler again, two things caught my mind. First, the bill of this warbler is quite long and thick compared to Yellow-browed warbler I've met. And the lower mandible is too bright. The spots of the secondary are too small or weak. Sometimes it seems that there are no spots. In the case of Yellow-browed warbler, the spots may appear very small or weak at this time, but I have never seen a spot appear weak like this warbler. So, I wanted to explore the possibility of this warbler being of a different species.
By the way, after hearing your opinions, it seems unlikely that this warbler is a different species.
 
This looks like a worn Yellow-browed Warbler to me.

The wing pattern shows two broad wingbars, with pale fringes to the tertials and dark centres to the greater coverts. The pale fringes to the tertials are less obvious than in an autumn bird, due to wear, but they are still distinctive and rule out most Phylloscopus species.

Although the bases to the secondaries are not as dark as on many Yellow-browed, there are still slightly dark bases on the inner secondaries.

Species of the Pallas's Warbler complex and Chinese Leaf Warbler can be ruled out by the lack of a central crown stripe or pale rump.

Despite the earlier comment, personally I would say that the bill structure supports Yellow-browed (or Hume's) over other species.

This combination of features (two wing bars, pale fringes to tertials, central crown stripe, green rump) leaves only Yellow-browed and Hume's as candidates. I would expect Hume's to have darker bill and legs, with less green in the plumage (even mandellii). Overall, this looks very like Yellow-browed Warblers that I would expect to see in Hong Kong in spring.


I just wanted to point out that mandellii can actually be quite bright with quite strong green and yellow tones. This seems to be the case with fresh birds in autumn. Examples of how bright they can be can be seen in Ayuwat's excellent images from Thailand here:

https://ebird.org/media/catalog?tax...=Thailand (TH)&regionCode=TH&q=Hume's Warbler

There's quite a contrast between those birds, which astonished me when I first saw them, and, say, Wichyanan's bird in row 3.

There are some more subtle differences between mandellii and Yellow-browed. Firstly, on mandellii, only the base of the lower mandible is flesh-coloured. The lower mandible on the OP bird is pretty much entirely yellow with just the hint of a dark tip. Also in mandellii, the upper (median covert) wing bar tends to be weaker, the dark centres to the greater coverts are less pronounced and the dark primary/secondary bases (forming the dark lower border to the main wingbar) are narrower and weaker. The reason this feature is absent altogether on the OP is that, as John pointed out, it's in moult.

I'm still puzzled by your statement, taurus1971, that mandellii passes through Korea. I've never heard anything about this before. Any more references?
 
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I wich those articles on your site were in english! ๐Ÿ˜‰
JanJ

Hellow Janj,
Nice to see you again like this!
I think it is difficult to write this articles in English because my English is very poor.
I am really happy and happy that Birdforum's experts are there to solve my questions. After all, the problem is my lack of English skills ^^;
 
I just wanted to point out that mandellii can actually be quite bright with quite strong green and yellow tones. This seems to be the case with fresh birds in autumn. Examples of how bright they can be can be seen in Ayuwat's excellent images from Thailand here:

https://ebird.org/media/catalog?tax...=Thailand (TH)&regionCode=TH&q=Hume's Warbler

There' s quite a contrast between those birds, which astonished me when I first saw them, and, say, Wichyanan's bird in row 3.

There are some more subtle differences between mandellii and Yellow-browed. Firstly, on mandellii, only the base of the lower mandible is flesh-coloured. The lower mandible on the OP bird is pretty much entirely yellow with just the hint of a dark tip. Also in mandellii, the upper (median covert) wing bar tends to be weaker, the dark centres to the greater coverts are less pronounced and the dark primary/secondary bases (forming the dark lower border to the main wingbar) are narrower and weaker. The reason this feature is absent altogether on the OP is that, as John pointed out, it's in moult.

I'm still puzzled by your statement, taurus1971, that mandellii passes through Korea. I've never heard anything about this before. Any more references?


First of all, thanks for the detailed description and good photos.
I am troubled by the unusual moult pattern of the inornatus complex that travels through our country in spring. I know about mandellii's moult delay, but I have never heard of inornatus' moult delay. Could you please let me know if you know references to inornatus' moult delay?

Unfortunately, there are many records of mandellii in our country, but I can't find references to them. I will link to the Bird list of South Korea.
I've heard mandellii's call several times this spring on an island in the west coast of Korea (Eocheongdo).


http://www.birdskoreablog.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/checklist_0403_eng.pdf
 
I just wanted to point out that mandellii can actually be quite bright with quite strong green and yellow tones. This seems to be the case with fresh birds in autumn. Examples of how bright they can be can be seen in Ayuwat's excellent images from Thailand here:

https://ebird.org/media/catalog?tax...=Thailand (TH)&regionCode=TH&q=Hume's Warbler

There' s quite a contrast between those birds, which astonished me when I first saw them, and, say, Wichyanan's bird in row 3.

There are some more subtle differences between mandellii and Yellow-browed. Firstly, on mandellii, only the base of the lower mandible is flesh-coloured. The lower mandible on the OP bird is pretty much entirely yellow with just the hint of a dark tip. Also in mandellii, the upper (median covert) wing bar tends to be weaker, the dark centres to the greater coverts are less pronounced and the dark primary/secondary bases (forming the dark lower border to the main wingbar) are narrower and weaker. The reason this feature is absent altogether on the OP is that, as John pointed out, it's in moult.

I'm still puzzled by your statement, taurus1971, that mandellii passes through Korea. I've never heard anything about this before. Any more references?

I knew only the mandellii's the base of the lower mandible is of limited light color. By the way, Ayuwat's images are quite wide in the bright part of the lower mandiblel. The bright color range of the mandellii's lower mandible base is what I've always wondered about.
 
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