Barred Warbler

About the Barred Warbler

The barred warbler (Curruca nisoria) is a species of bird in the warbler family Sylviidae which breeds across temperate regions of central and eastern Europe and western and central Asia. This passerine bird is strongly migratory, and winters in tropical eastern Africa.

It is the largest Curruca warbler, 15.5–17 cm in length and weighing 22–36 g, mainly grey above and whitish below. Adult males are dark grey above with white tips on the wing coverts and tail feathers, and heavily barred below. The female is similar but slightly paler and has only light barring. Young birds are buffy grey-brown above, pale buff below, and have very little barring, with few obvious distinctive features; they can easily be confused with garden warblers, differing in the slight barring on the tail coverts and the pale fringes on the wing feathers, and their slightly larger size. The eye has a yellow iris in adults, dark in immatures; the bill is blackish with a paler base, and the legs stout, grey-brown.

Within the genus Curruca it is highly distinctive; the barred underside is shared only with the Cyprus warbler, which has black barring and an entirely different overall colour pattern. The... Wikipedia →