Yellow-browed Warbler Phylloscopus inornatus breeds in Western and Eastern Palearctic and winters mostly in SE Asia (Clement, 2019). In India, the wintering range is mainly Himalayan foothills and north-eastern India while there are scattered records from all over southern India (Rasmussen & Anderton 2012, eBird 2019). Owing the difficulties in differentiation of this species with Hume’s Leaf Warbler Phylloscopus humei, with which it was once treated as conspecific, Yellow-browed Warbler is probably overlooked in southern India.
A recent bird watching trip took me to the Western Ghats, south-western India. On 17 February 2019, I was birding in a forest patch along the Pothamedu road near the Holly Hock hotel, Munnar with my girlfriend, in search of some specialities. The morning was successful with great views of a male Pied Thrush Geokichla wardii, a Painted Bush-quail Perdicula erythrorhyncha covey, the endemic Broad-tailed Grassbird Schoenicola platyurus and a selection of wintering Phylloscopus, including Western Crowned Leaf Warbler Phylloscopus occipitalis and Large-billed Leaf Warbler Phylloscopus magnirostris. When heading back to our accommodation, I heard the diagnostic call of a Yellow-browed Warbler, a species which I am well familiar with from Thailand and recent influxes in Europe. I quickly located the bird, who remained still and allowed photographs to be taken (Picture 1-4). The bird called a few more times but no recordings were obtained.
The identification is based on the characteristic call, a high-pitched ‘tssiui’, differing from the disyllabic call of Hume’s Leaf Warbler and morphological features such as greenish upper parts with two bold yellowish wing bars, pale black eye stripe with a yellowish supercilium, whitish under-parts with a yellow wash, pale lower mandible with dark tip and paler legs (usually, Hume’s Leaf-warbler shows dark bill and legs).
Prior to this, there is only one report of this species from Kerala which is by Paul Holt on 14 February 1995, incidentally also from Munnar. In the same trip, he came across the species from Ooty, Tamil Nadu – though he did not record the species in his subsequent trips to southern India (Sashikumar et al. 2011). The species was not included in the main checklist of Sashikumar et al. (2011) as it did not satisfy the criteria for inclusion – at least two independent sight records by two independent observers. Hence, with my current set of pictures, and the fact that the diagnostic call was heard a number of times, it would be a clear addition to the Kerala bird checklist.
I want to express my gratitude to Abhinand Chandran for his help regarding the status of the species in southern India and the redaction of a draft for this article.
References
Clement, P. (2019). Yellow-browed Warbler (Phylloscopus inornatus). In: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. Retrieved on 30 April 2019 from https://www.hbw.com/node/58883
https://ebird.org/species/yebwar3 accessed on 14 June 2019.
Rasmussen, Pamela C. & Anderton, John C. (2012). Birds of South Asia: the Ripley guide: 2nd ed. Washington, D.C. and Barcelona: Smithsonian Institution and Lynx Edicions. 2 vols. Pp. 1-378; 1-683.
Sashikumar, C., J. Praveen, M. J. Palot & P. O. Nameer. (2011). Birds of Kerala: status and distribution. DC Books. Kottayam, Kerala, 835pp.