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Western Subalpine Warbler | Curruca iberiae
Westelijke baardgrasmus | Curruca carrasqueña
Western Subalpine Warbler is the subalpine warbler of the Maghreb: a common summer visitor to the scrub of the Atlas and the Tell, and in spring one of the most numerous migrants in the oases of the Sahara. North African birds (inornata) form their own subspecies alongside those of Iberia and southern France.
Voice
The call is a hard, dry, monosyllabic tek, often in short series, like the ticking of Lesser Whitethroat. The song is a fast, even and fairly musical chatter of two to three seconds, from a bush top or in a short song flight.
Recording: Xavier Riera — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
12–13 cm. Small and long-tailed, with an orange-red eye-ring. The male is slate-grey above with a brownish tinge and has warm orange brick-colour from chin to belly, fading without a sharp border; the white moustache is narrow. North African birds are slightly paler and more uniformly orange, with an even weaker moustache. A square white tip on the penultimate tail feather; primary projection short. The female is brownish grey above and creamy white with a pinkish wash below, with the reddish eye-ring.
Confusion species
Eastern Subalpine Warbler (Curruca cantillans), on passage in Tunisia and Libya, has a deeper brick-red throat and breast sharply demarcated from a white belly, a broader moustache, a longer primary projection and a narrow white wedge on the penultimate tail feather. Moltoni's Warbler (Curruca subalpina), a vagrant here, is paler salmon-pink and rattles. Spectacled Warbler (Curruca conspicillata) has a white eye-ring, dark lores and a rufous wing; Greater Whitethroat (Curruca communis) is larger, with a broad rufous wing panel and no red eye-ring.
Habitat
Breeds in maquis, garrigue and dense scrub of holm oak, juniper, cistus and broom, in open woodland and on slopes, from sea level to over 2000 m in the Atlas. On migration in any scrub, and especially in oases, palm groves and tamarisks in the Sahara.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the habitats of North Africa and the Middle East.
Range and movements
Breeds in Morocco in the north, the Rif, the Middle and High Atlas, in northern Algeria in the Tell Atlas and Saharan Atlas, in northern and central Tunisia and in north-west Libya. On passage throughout the north-western Sahara, from Western Sahara and southern Morocco to southern Algeria and Libya, in spring sometimes in large numbers in the oases. Winters in the Sahel south of the Sahara. Beyond the region it breeds in Iberia, southern France and extreme north-west Italy.
- Summer visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Winter visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
A morning in April in the tamarisks and palm groves of Merzouga, Erg Chebbi or the Draa oases often yields dozens of subalpine warblers. Breeding birds are easy to find in the scrub of the Middle Atlas around Ifrane and Azrou and on the slopes of the Rif.
Conservation status
Not yet assessed separately by IUCN (BirdLife lumps it with Eastern Subalpine Warbler, which is not threatened). Widespread and common in the Maghreb; locally it suffers from clearing and burning of scrub and from overgrazing.
Scientific name
Curruca iberiae | (Svensson, 2013)
Svensson described the species in 2013 as Sylvia inornata iberiae; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Curruca was introduced in 1802 by Bechstein. Curruca is Latin, the name of an unidentified small bird mentioned by the Roman poet Juvenal. iberiae means 'of Iberia', the Iberian Peninsula, where most of the breeding range lies. The specimen the first description was based on came from the Iberian Peninsula.