White-winged Swamp Warbler

A common, mid-sized swiftlet found over forests and open areas, mainly in the mountains. Slender shape and a notched tail that it sometimes fans. Gray-brown with a contrasting darker tail and forewing. Often seen in flocks and can fly at all levels. Does long glides with tips of the wings held down slightly, and sometimes tipping from side to side. Not safely distinguished from the lowland Uniform Swiftlet. Call, a high-pitch, up-and-down chatter including some grating notes.

Medium-sized warbler with prominent pale “spectacles.” Extent of gray crown coloration is geographically variable; Himalayan birds average the darkest and Chinese birds the palest. Himalayan and Vietnamese birds’ dark gray crowns may recall Gray-cheeked Warbler, but both forms of White-spectacled Warbler have a much more contrasting crown pattern and bright yellow throats. White-spectacled’s eye-ring is broken at the top instead of at the back as it is in Golden-spectacled and Gray-crowned Warblers. Forages at lower levels of the forest, often making sallies after mobile prey. Breeds at medium altitudes in broadleaf hill and montane forest, with Chinese and Himalayan birds moving to lower altitudes in the non-breeding season. Song is distinctly broken and hesitant, slowly picking up as it progresses and ending with a variable trill; contains more trilling than Gray-cheeked Warbler’s song. Lower in pitch and more faltering, less accelerating, than the songs of Gray-crowned and Martens’s Warblers. Presence of any trilling components at all distinguishes this species from Bianchi’s Warbler. 

Bright green finch with brilliant red face and bill and numerous small pale spots on face, chest, flanks, and base of tail. Compare longer-tailed female Crimson Finch, which is much browner and less heavily spotted. Often found in very large flocks in grasslands and reedbeds of northeastern Western Australia and northwestern Northern Territory; rarer in Darwin/Kakadu region.