Chinese Bush Warbler Locustella tacsanowskia 中華短翅鶯
Category I. Accidental.
IDENTIFICATION
Sep. 2014, Paul Leader.
13 cm. Rather plain and featureless with olive-brown upperparts and pale underparts. Structure similar to Russet Bush Warbler, upperparts paler and duller than Brown Bush Warbler. Most resembles Baikal Bush Warbler but separable on the basis of narrow, often poorly-defined pale tips to the undertail coverts (broad on Baikal Bush Warbler giving a banded impression), duller upperparts, plainer head pattern (Kennerley and Pearson 2010).
VOCALISATIONS
The call is most similar to Brown Bush Warbler but is not as low in pitch and is slightly thinner.
DISTRIBUTION & HABITAT PREFERENCE
Of the two birds that have occurred, one was trapped in reed marsh and the second in shrub.
OCCURRENCE
The only records are of single first-winter birds trapped at Mai Po NR on 5th and 30 September 2014 (Leader 2019).
BEHAVIOUR, DIET & FORAGING
No observations in HK, but highly skulking on the breeding grounds.
RANGE & SYSTEMATICS
Monotypic. Although it breeds over a large latitudinal range from south Siberia to south Guangxi, the actual distribution is limited to a band from Lake Baikal to northeast China and from east Mongolia to southeast Tibet and north Yunnan. The non-breeding range is less certain due to its secretive habits, but it appears to include the eastern Himalayan foothills, north Myanmar, north Thailand and Yunnan, southwest China (Kennerley and Pearson 2010, Madge 2020, Liu and Chen 2020).
CONSERVATION STATUS
IUCN: Least Concern. Population trend stable.
Kennerley, P. and D. Pearson (2010). Reed and Bush Warblers. Christopher Helm, London.
Leader, P. J. (2019). Chinese Bush Warbler Locustella tacsanowskia at Mai Po Nature Reserve. The first Hong Kong records. Hong Kong Bird Report 2017: 264-267.
Liu, Y. and Y. H. Chen (eds) (2020). The CNG Field Guide to the Birds of China (in Chinese). Hunan Science and Technology Publication House, Changsha.
Madge, S. (2020). Chinese Bush Warbler (Locustella tacsanowskia), 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.chbwar1.01.
