Asian Stubtail
Urosphena squameiceps
A well-named tiny songbird, “a head with wings,” with rather long bill, long legs, and very short tail. Long buffy supercilium is conspicuous even in the gloomy leaf litter and dense shrubbery where this minute bird lurks. Other brown, skulking warblers such as Dusky and Radde's have much longer tails and lack the strongly contrasting buffy supercilium. Song an insect-like, throbbing buzz recalling a katydid or cicada.
Identification
It is a small bird with a short tail. Males and females are similar in color, as well as juveniles after fledging; they are brown all over with a paler underpart and a darker brown crest and eyeline.
Taxonomy
- Scientific name
- Urosphena squameiceps
- Authority
- (Swinhoe, 1863)
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Troglodytidae
- Genus
- Urosphena
Range and habitat
Breeding Asian stubtails reside in portions of northeastern Asia; non-breeding in parts of southeast Asia including Taiwan, southeastern China, Nepal and Philippines, preferring a habitat of undergrowth in evergreen broadleaf or lowland coniferous forest.
- Breeding range
- PAL : se Russia, ne China, North and South Korea and Japan
- Non-breeding range
- se Asia
- Migration
- Complete migrants
Behavior
Breeding males produce a high-pitched shee-shee-shee-shee or cee-cee-cee, while both males and females make a call similar to chott-chott-chott.
Conservation
- Population trend
- stable
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
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