IDENTIFICATION

VOCALISATIONS

The call, which is heard from birds in level flight or those that fly over the winter territory is a clipped ‘chip’, not unlike a flight call of White Wagtail.

The song is a monotonous, repeated ‘zit’ or ‘zit-zit’ given in a rhythm matching flight undulations.

Sometimes this presaged by a high-pitched ‘tee-tee-tee…’, which can also be uttered alone.

DISTRIBUTION & HABITAT PREFERENCE

Zitting Cisticola is widespread in open country areas with long grass but is most abundant at such places as Long Valley or areas of fish ponds. It takes advantage of wasteland or temporary grassy areas that are recently cleared, even at the edge of urban areas. Early morning migration is very evident over Mai Po NR in autumn.

In winter atlas surveys carried out in 2001-05 and 2016-19, the former recorded Zitting Cisticola in 5% of squares, while in the latter it was recorded in only 1.3%. The declines occurred in the east and northeast New Territories and at the edge of the Deep Bay area. Similarly, there was a decline from between the breeding bird surveys of 1993-96 and 2016-19 from 1.6% to 0.3%, with declines occurring at the edge of the Deep Bay area and north of the Ma On Shan hills.

OCCURRENCE

Zitting Cisticola is generally present from September to March when it is common, and from April to August when it is scarce (Figure 1). Numbers increase initially in the second half of August and there is a clear passage period during the last three weeks of September and the first half of October. While the chart exaggerates the relative number passing through in the first week of October because of atypically high counts in 1999, it is the case that peak passage occurs in the first half of that month.

Numbers are then far lower before increasing again from the second week of November to apparently peak in the last two weeks of December, presumably indicating the arrival of wintering birds. From the start of the year, there is a gradual decline in numbers until the spring. This pattern is broadly unchanged from the period prior to 1999.

Figure 1 indicates winter was previously the season when highest numbers occurred, indicating that a decline in the wintering population has occurred. The highest counts are 100 at Long Valley on 5 December 1997 and 9 January 1999; however, this is double the highest count since. There would appear to have been an increase in numbers passing through in autumn, though it is unclear to what extent this is due to observer activity (in particular, observations at Mai Po NR early in the morning and regular counts at Long Valley).

This species was stated by Swinhoe (1861), Kershaw (1904) and Herklots (1953) to be a winter visitor. It was first recorded breeding by Walker (1958), who found a nest containing six eggs at Mai Po in June 1957.

BREEDING

The breeding population has always been small and there have been no records of breeding behaviour since 2015 when two fledged juveniles were present at Tai O on 5 September. Song flight in suitable habitat at an appropriate time of year was noted in 2008, 2009 and 2011 in the Deep Bay area and at the old Kai Tak Runway in 2010.

BEHAVIOUR, FORAGING & DIET

Difficult to see well as it forages low in grassy or reedy vegetation and flies low when flushed before diving again into cover, though neither as speedily nor as determinedly as Lanceolated or Pallas’s Grasshopper Warbler. Unlike the latter two, individuals will sit up in the open, both on grass or reed stems and overhead wires. Active over grassy areas where it often flies up calling or in song. Commonly seen on autumn migration early morning when birds fly over calling. Insectivorous, but no details.

RANGE & SYSTEMATICS

Occurs in southwest and southeast Europe, north Africa, scattered areas of sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, Indochina through much of southeast Asia to Indonesia and northern Australia, from south to northeast China, the Korean peninsula and Japan (Ryan 2020). In China present all year from the Chang Jiang (Yangtze) floodplain south and a summer visitor north to Hebei (where small numbers also winter) and less commonly to south Heilongjiang (Liu and Chen 2020, Birding Beijing 2022).

Polytypic, with over 15 subspecies recognised. That most relevant to HK is C. j. tinnabulans, which breeds from southeast China, including Hainan and Taiwan, to Indochina, Thailand and the Philippines. Other forms that could potentially occur are C. j. brunniceps, which breeds in South Korea and Japan, and C. j. cursitans, which breeds from east Afghanistan to north Myanmar and southwest China and south to southeast India and Sri Lanka; these are potentially migrants through HK.

CONSERVATION STATUS

IUCN: Least Concern. Population trend increasing.