Pallas's grasshopper warbler (''Helopsaltes certhiola''), also known as the rusty-rumped warbler, 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

grass warbler The grass warblers are small passerine birds belonging to the genus ''Locustella''. Formerly placed in the paraphyletic "Old World warbler" assemblage, they are now considered the northernmost representatives of a largely Gondwanan family, the L ...

genus ''Helopsaltes''. It breeds in the eastern

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 ...

: 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 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 ...

eastward to

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

. It is a rare migrant in

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 ...

Etymology

This bird was named after the German zoologist

Peter Simon Pallas Peter Simon Pallas Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS FRSE (22 September 1741 – 8 September 1811) was a Prussian zoologist and botanist who worked in Russia between 1767 and 1810. Life and work Peter Simon Pallas was born in Berlin, the son ...

. The specific ''certhiola'' is a diminutive from the genus ''Certhia'', the

treecreeper The treecreepers are a family, Certhiidae, of small passerine birds, widespread in wooded regions of the Northern Hemisphere and sub-Saharan Africa. The family contains eleven species in two genera, ''Certhia'' and ''Salpornis''. Their plumage is ...

s. The sixth edition of ''

Clements Checklist ''The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World'' is a book by Jim Clements which presents a list of the bird species of the world. The most recent printed version is the sixth edition (2007), but has been updated yearly, the last version in 202 ...

'' Clements, James F. (2007) ''The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World''

Cornell University Press The Cornell University Press is the university press of Cornell University; currently housed in Sage House, the former residence of Henry William Sage. It was first established in 1869, making it the first university publishing enterprise in th ...

refers to this species as "Pallas's warbler", a name more commonly used for '' Phylloscopus proregulus.''

Habitat

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 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 Vagrancy is the condition of homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants (also known as bums, vagabonds, rogues, tramps or drifters) usually live in poverty and support themselves by begging, scavenging, petty theft, temporar ...

to western

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 ...

. One of the best places to see this skulking species as a vagrant is

Fair Isle Fair Isle (; sco, Fair Isle; non, Friðarey; gd, Fara) is an island in Shetland, in northern Scotland. It lies about halfway between mainland Shetland and Orkney. It is known for its bird observatory and a traditional style of knitting. Th ...

Shetland Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the no ...

; for a species that only rarely appears in western Europe, it can be found there with some regularity.

Description

This is a medium-sized warbler. The adult has a streaked brown back, whitish grey underparts, unstreaked except on the undertail. The sexes are identical, as with most warblers, but young birds are yellower below. Like most warblers, it is insectivorous. It is very similar to the

common grasshopper warbler The common grasshopper warbler (''Locustella naevia'') is a species of Old World warbler in the grass warbler genus ''Locustella''. It breeds across much of temperate Europe and the western Palearctic. It is migratory, wintering in north and we ...

, but is slightly larger, has white tips to the tail and tertial feathers, and a warmer brown rump. The white tips are the reason for its

colloquial Colloquialism (), also called colloquial language, everyday language or general parlance, is the linguistic style used for casual (informal) communication. It is the most common functional style of speech, the idiom normally employed in conver ...

mnemonic A mnemonic ( ) device, or memory device, is any learning technique that aids information retention or retrieval (remembering) in the human memory for better understanding. Mnemonics make use of elaborative encoding, retrieval cues, and imag ...

name of "

PG Tips PG Tips is a brand of tea in the United Kingdom manufactured by Ekaterra. Brand name In the 1930s, Brooke Bond launched PG Tips in the tea market in the United Kingdom under the name ''Pre-Gestee'' - a variant of the original name "Digestive Tea. ...

". This is a skulking species which is very difficult to see except sometimes when singing. It creeps through grass and low foliage.

Voice

The song is not the mechanical insect-like reeling produced by the common grasshopper warbler and some other ''Locustella'' warblers, but an inventive ''Acrocephalus''-like melody.

Subspecies

Five subspecies recognized: *''H. c. rubescens'' Blyth, 1845 *''H. c. sparsimstriatus'' Meise, 1934 *''H. c. certhiola'' (Pallas, 1811) *''H. c. centralasiae'' Sushkin, 1925 *''H. c. minor'' David & Oustalet, 1877

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1345750 Pallas's grasshopper warbler Birds of Mongolia Birds of Manchuria Pallas's grasshopper warbler