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Wood Warbler | Phylloscopus sibilatrix
Fluiter | Mosquitero silbador
The Wood Warbler is a large, long-winged leaf warbler that breeds in tall broadleaved woodland in Europe and appears in this region only as a passage migrant to and from tropical Africa. In spring it passes in numbers through Egypt, Libya and the Levant, stopping briefly in any clump of trees, oasis or garden, sometimes even singing.
Voice
Two song types: a series of ticks that accelerates into a shivering trill, sip-sip-sip-sipsipsirrrrrr, and a series of plaintive piping notes, dyoo-dyoo-dyoo. Migrants regularly sing in spring. The call is a soft, falling dyoo.
Recording: Sunny Tseng — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
11–12.5 cm. Large and elongated for a leaf warbler, with long wings (primary projection about equal to the tertials) and a short tail. The plumage is three-toned and sharply divided: bright yellow-green above, lemon yellow on the supercilium, throat and upper breast, and abruptly pure white below. The long yellow supercilium contrasts with a dark eye-stripe; wing coverts and tertials have yellow-green edges. Legs pale yellowish-brown. Sexes alike; autumn birds are slightly duller.
Confusion species
Willow Warbler (Phylloscopus trochilus) is smaller and less contrasting, with yellow diffusely extending to the flanks and a shorter primary projection. Common Chiffchaff (Phylloscopus collybita) is more compact, browner and dark-legged, without a yellow throat. Western Bonelli's Warbler (Phylloscopus bonelli) and Eastern Bonelli's Warbler (Phylloscopus orientalis) are greyer and white below, with no yellow on throat and breast, a yellow rump and a green wing panel. Green Warbler (Phylloscopus nitidus) has a wing bar and yellow extending onto the belly.
Habitat
Breeds in tall, shady broadleaved woodland with little undergrowth. On passage any place with trees or bushes: oases, date-palm gardens, tamarisk thickets along wadis, parks, gardens and coastal groves; forages mainly in the canopy.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the habitats of North Africa and the Middle East.
Range and movements
Passage migrant, more numerous in spring than in autumn: through Libya (especially Cyrenaica and Tripolitania), Tunisia, Egypt (Nile Valley, north coast, Sinai), Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, where it is fairly common in late April and early May. Scarce in Morocco and Algeria, mainly in spring in the east; scarce to rare in Iraq and on the Arabian Peninsula (western Saudi Arabia, Yemen), and a vagrant to Kuwait, the UAE and Oman. In autumn it migrates more across the central Mediterranean and is inconspicuous in the Levant. Breeds from western Europe to western Siberia and winters in the forest zone of West and Central Africa.
- 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
In late April and early May in an oasis or park along the flyway: in Sinai, at Eilat or in the gardens of the Libyan and Egyptian coast. Look for a slim, bright yellow-and-white warbler feeding high in a tree; singing migrants give themselves away with the accelerating trill.
Conservation status
Not globally threatened, but has declined sharply in much of western and central Europe, probably through changes in forest management, on the wintering grounds and along the flyway. In this region only migrants occur, which are vulnerable to drought in the Sahara and to trapping in North Africa.
Scientific name
Phylloscopus sibilatrix | (Bechstein, 1792) (GBIF: Phylloscopus sibillatrix)
Bechstein described the species in 1792 as Motacilla Sibilatrix; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Phylloscopus was introduced in 1826 by Boie. Phylloscopus is Greek, from phullon 'leaf' and skopos 'seeker', from skopeō 'to watch': the bird that searches the foliage. sibilatrix is Latin for 'female whistler', from sibilare 'to whistle', after the trilling song of the male. The specimen the first description was based on came from the mountains of Thuringia.