Pallas's Grasshopper Warbler

About the Pallas's Grasshopper Warbler

Pallas's grasshopper warbler (Helopsaltes certhiola), also known as the rusty-rumped warbler, is an Old World warbler in the genus Helopsaltes. It breeds in the eastern Palearctic: from the Altai Mountains, Mongolia and Transbaikalia to northeastern China, the Korean Peninsula, and islands in the Sea of Okhotsk (Sakhalin and Kuril Islands). It is migratory, wintering from India eastward to Indonesia. It is a rare migrant in Sri Lanka.

This bird was named after the German zoologist Peter Simon Pallas. The specific certhiola is a diminutive from the genus Certhia, the treecreepers. The sixth edition of Clements Checklist refers to this species as "Pallas's warbler", a name more commonly used for Phylloscopus proregulus.

This small passerine bird is found in tall grass with some thicker vegetation, usually close to water in bogs or wet meadows. From 4 to 7 eggs are laid in a nest on the ground in grass. This species is a very rare vagrant to western Europe. One of the best places to see this skulking species as a vagrant is Fair Isle, Shetland; for a species that only rarely appears in western Europe, it can be found there with some regularity. Wikipedia →