Long-billed Bush Warbler
Locustella major
Extremely rare, large, elongated brown warbler with a long slender bill. Fairly similar in appearance to West Himalayan, Chinese, Baikal, and Spotted Bush Warblers, but breeding ranges do not overlap. Like other bush warblers, typically very skulking and furtive, preferring to run instead of fly when threatened. Emerges onto small bushes to sing, producing a dull clicking that would underwhelm a grasshopper. Breeds in weedy and bushy slopes in open alpine and subalpine areas; wintering habitat poorly understood but presumed to be similar habitat at lower altitudes. Very few sightings in recent years.
Identification
Long-billed bush warbler is small brown bird with pink legs, a relatively long black bill and a brown eye. Its body is brown with a pale breast, throat, and supercilium. Its song is a repetitive clicking noise similar to that of grasshopper but less buzzy.[citation needed]
Taxonomy
The Long-billed bush warbler was described by Irish ornithologist William Edwin Brooks in 1871 with the given type locality of "Kashmir". He gave it the name Dumeticola major, with Dumeticola meaning inhabiting thickets, owing to the habitat of the bird and major being a reference to it being larger than the Baikal bush warbler (then under the name Dumeticola affinis). It was later placed in the genus Locustella, which is a reference to the locust-like call of the birds in the genus. There a currently two recognized subspecies:
- Scientific name
- Locustella major
- Authority
- (Brooks, WE, 1871)
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Locustellidae
- Genus
- Locustella
Range and habitat
It is found in two disjunct populations, one (L. m. major) occurs in Tajikistan, Pakistan, Ladakh, and Kashmir. The other (L. m. innae) is found in the Kunlun Mountains in central Xinjiang, China. There are unconfirmed reports from Uzbekistan.[citation needed]
- Migration
- Vertical migration
Conservation
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
Other Birds
West Indian Woodpecker
Melanerpes superciliaris
A medium-sized woodpecker of drier forests including palm groves. Its strongly barred back eliminates all other species in it range except for Northern and Fernandina’s Flickers, but both flickers lack the West Indian Woodpecker’s extensively red nape and hind-crown. The barring on the back of the Northern Flicker is also far less pronounced than it is on West Indian Woodpecker. Common vocalizations include a staccato “pee-uh-uh-uh-uh…” with accent on first note, and emphatic bursts of “bluhhh, bluhhh, bluhhh,” with notes that are both harsh and slightly trilled.
White-bellied Hummingbird
Elliotomyia chionogaster
Medium-sized hummingbird of middle and high elevations. Green above, white below, with a pinkish lower mandible. Found around forest edges and scrubby open habitats. Distinguished with care from the very similar Green-and-white Hummingbird by the white extending lower onto the underside of the tail, and by its sometimes lighter pink lower mandible; it is also typically found in more open habitats than that species.
Himalayan Cuckoo
Cuculus saturatus
Visually indistinguishable from Oriental Cuckoo. Adult male is gray above with a black-and-white-barred belly and a dark gray tail; females usually look similar, but some (known as hepatic morph birds) have cinnamon-brown upperparts with black barring throughout. Intermediate in size between Common and Lesser Cuckoos; distinguished from both species by buffy (not white) under-tail feathers and from Lesser Cuckoos by yellow iris. Song is a series of five notes, with the leading note being sharper and more distinct than the four that follow; compare with Oriental Cuckoo’s series of mellow paired notes. Breeds in a wide range of different lowland and hill forests; also more open habitats outside of breeding season.
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