Grey-crowned Warbler Phylloscopus tephrocephalus 灰冠鶲鶯
Category I. Accidental.
IDENTIFICATION
Dec. 2022, Robert Hackel.
10-11 cm. Yellow orbital ring with narrow break at rear, distinct dark lateral crown stripes reaching almost to bill, bright grey median crown stripe and lower border of lateral crown stripes, saturated yellow underparts, wing bars faint or lacking, relatively short and thin bill (Leader and Carey 2016). Call diagnostic (see below).
VOCALISATIONS
Call is a rapidly uttered double note ‘chrrup’ or ‘turup’, most similar to that of Martens’s Warbler but softer, richer and lower in pitch. The same note presages most strophes in full song.
DISTRIBUTION & HABITAT PREFERENCE
All records have occurred in closed-canopy shrubland and woodland.
OCCURRENCE
Appears to be the rarest of the ‘golden-spectacled’ group of warblers.
1990: one trapped at Kadoorie Agricultural Research Centre on 11 November.
2015: one at Nam Shan Tung, Sai Kung West Country Park on 9th and 22 February.
2020: one on Tung Lung Chau on 22 October.
Lack of knowledge regarding field identification of members of the ‘golden-spectacled’ group of warblers means only in-hand records before 2002 can be assigned to species.
BEHAVIOUR, FORAGING & DIET
Insectivorous but no details. Forages unobtrusively in the understorey.
RANGE & SYSTEMATICS
Monotypic. Distribution imperfectly known but probably breeds central and southwest China to north Indochina, northeast India and north Vietnam; in non-breeding season occurs further south to south Myanmar, northwest Thailand the south China (Alström 2020).
CONSERVATION STATUS
IUCN: Least Concern. Population trend stable.
Alström, P. (2020). Grey-crowned Warbler (Phylloscopus tephrocephalus), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.gycwar1.01
Leader, P. J. and G. J. Carey (2016). The identification of Seicercus warblers in Hong Kong. Hong Kong Bird Report 2014: 322-333.
