Greenish warbler

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Greenish warbler
nominate race P. trochiloides trochiloides adult from Pangolakha Wildlife Sanctuary, Sikkim, India

Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Phylloscopidae
Genus: Phylloscopus
Species:
P. trochiloides
Binomial name
Phylloscopus trochiloides
(Sundevall, 1837)
Subspecies

5, and see text

Range of P. trochiloides
  Breeding
  Passage
  Non-breeding

The greenish warbler (Phylloscopus trochiloides) is a widespread

vagrant in Western Europe and is annually seen in Great Britain. In Central Europe large numbers of vagrant birds are encountered in some years; some of these may stay to breed, as a handful of pairs does each year in Germany.[2]

Like all leaf warblers, it was formerly placed in the "

Phylloscopidae.[3] The genus name Phylloscopus is from Ancient Greek phullon, "leaf", and skopos, "seeker" (from skopeo, "to watch"). The specific trochiloides is from Ancient Greek trokhalos, "bowed", and -oides "resembling", from the similarity to the willow warbler, P. trochilus.[4] The English name of this species provides a perfect argument in favour of the capitalisation of species names (i.e. treating them as proper nouns), a convention which is generally applied in scientific literature
. The decapitalised "greenish warbler" is equally descriptive of many bird species across multiple families, whereas a capitalised "Greenish Warbler" shows unambiguously that Phylloscopus trochiloides is under discussion.

Description and ecology

Greenish warbler P.trochiloides from Anamalai Hills, Southern Western Ghats, India
Western greenish warbler,
P. (t.) viridianus

This is a typical leaf warbler in appearance, grayish-green above and off-white below. The single wing bar found in the southern and western populations distinguishes them from most similar species (except Arctic warbler P. borealis). It is slightly smaller than that species and has a thinner bill, without a dark tip to the lower mandible. A latitude-based analysis of wintering birds indicated that more northerly P. trochiloides are smaller, i.e. this species does not seem to follow Bergmann's rule.[5]

Its song is a high jerky trill, in some populations containing a sequence of down- and more rarely up slurred notes.

It breeds in

subtropical lowlands in winter.[6]

The

insectivorous
.

Subspecies and evolution

Himalayas.
Yellow: P. t. trochiloides
Orange: P. t. obscuratus
Red: P. t. plumbeitarsus
green: P. t. ludlowi
Blue: P. t. viridanus
P. t. nitidus of the Caucasus
is not shown.

It has a number of subspecies, of which P. t . viridianus is the most familiar in Europe. As it seems, it is a ring species, with populations diverging east- and westwards of the Tibetan Plateau, later meeting on the northern side. Their relationships are therefore fairly confusing:[7]

The groups' origin lies probably in the

parapatric obscuratus, and to plumbeitarsus which is geographically separated from obscuratus; they all can (and in the case of the former two do naturally) hybridize. P. t. plumbeitarsus is often split as distinct species, as it does not hybridize with viridianus in the narrow zone in the western Sayan Mountains
where their ranges overlap.

But

taxa are even more distinct. However, there is some gene flow between trochiloides and viridianus also, with their hybrids being especially common in Baltistan; which are now considered as a distinct subspecies ludlowi. The green warbler
P. nitidus, now considered as a distinct species, is a mountain isolate that diverged from ancestral viridianus.

Song structure differs mainly between greenish warbler and two-barred warbler, which was formerly considered conspecific. The former has a fairly uniform, long, and warbling song. Around the Himalayas, song structure is similar, but songs are generally shorter. Two-barred warbler, on the other hand, has a long song that can be clearly divided into a warbling part, followed by a series of up- and downslurred notes. The songs of obscuratus and ludlowi, are short, but contain the downslur elements too; in the latter, they uniquely appear at the start of the song.[8]

Footnotes

  1. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2017-3.RLTS.T103845399A119302608.en
    . Retrieved 13 November 2021.
  2. ^ Snow et al. (1998), Töpfer (2007)
  3. ^ Alström et al. (2006)
  4. ^ Jobling (2010)
  5. ^ Katti & Price (2003)
  6. ^ Inskipp et al. (2000)
  7. ^ Snow et al. (1998), Alström (2006)
  8. ^ Irwin (2000)

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Phylloscopus trochiloides.
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