__NOTOC__ Blyth's reed warbler (''Acrocephalus dumetorum'') is an

Old World warbler Old World warblers are a large group of birds formerly grouped together in the bird family Sylviidae. The family held over 400 species in over 70 genera, and were the source of much taxonomic confusion. Two families were split out initially, the ci ...

in the genus '' Acrocephalus''. It breeds in the

Palearctic The Palearctic or Palaearctic is the largest of the eight biogeographic realms of the Earth. It stretches across all of Eurasia north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa. The realm consists of several bioregions: the Euro-Sibe ...

and easternmost

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

. It is migratory, wintering in

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

. It is one of the most common winter warblers in those countries. It is a rare vagrant to western

Etymology

This bird is named after the British zoologist

Edward Blyth Edward Blyth (23 December 1810 – 27 December 1873) was an English zoologist who worked for most of his life in India as a curator of zoology at the museum of the Asiatic Society of India in Calcutta. Blyth was born in London in 1810. In 1841 ...

. The genus name ''Acrocephalus'' is from

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

''akros'', "highest", and ''kephale'', "head". It is possible that Naumann and Naumann thought ''akros'' meant "sharp-pointed". The specific ''dumetorum'' is from

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

''dumetum'', "thicket".

Description

This small

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by t ...

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

is a species found in scrub or clearings, often near water, but it is not found in marshes. 4-6 eggs are laid in a nest in a bush. Blyth's Reed Warbler Im- Kolkata IMG 9405

Blyth's Reed Warbler Im- Kolkata IMG 9405

This is a medium-sized warbler, in length. The adult has a plain brown back and pale underparts. It can easily be confused with the

reed warbler The ''Acrocephalus'' warblers are small, insectivorous passerine birds belonging to the genus ''Acrocephalus''. Formerly in the paraphyletic Old World warbler assemblage, they are now separated as the namesake of the marsh and tree warbler famil ...

, the

marsh warbler The marsh warbler (''Acrocephalus palustris'') is an Old World warbler currently classified in the family Acrocephalidae. It breeds in temperate Europe and the western Palearctic and winters mainly in southeast Africa. It is notable for incorpora ...

and some of the ''

Hippolais ''Hippolais'' is a genus of tree warbler in the family Acrocephalidae. It is sometimes associated with the genus '' Iduna''. The genus name ''Hippolais'' is from Ancient Greek ''hupolais'', as misspelt by Linnaeus. It referred to a small bird men ...

'' warblers. It is most like the reed warbler but is greyer on the back, the forehead is less flattened and the bill is less strong and pointed. The sexes are identical, as with most warblers, but young birds are yellower below.

Habitat

The habitat of Blyth's reed warbler is different from the reedbeds favoured by the reed warbler or the rank vegetation of the marsh warbler: this species chooses trees or bushes as songposts. Like most warblers, it is

insectivorous A robber fly eating a hoverfly An insectivore is a carnivorous animal or plant that eats insects. An alternative term is entomophage, which can also refer to the human practice of eating insects. The first vertebrate insectivores were ...

, but will take other small food items, including berries. In the breeding season, the best identification feature is the song, which is slow and repetitive, with much mimicry of other birds, punctuated with scales and typically acrocephaline whistles.

Etymology

Description

Habitat

References

Further reading

Identification