#locustella

[best-bird-tournament]

Grasshopper warbler (Locustella) - round 2

Which is the best bird?

Sulawesi bush warbler

Seram bush warbler

Buru bush warbler

Brown bush warbler

Long-tailed bush warbler

Voting ended onJul 28, 2025

[best-bird-tournament]

Grasshopper warbler (Locustella) - round 1, section 2

Which is the best bird?

Taliabu bush warbler

Javan bush warbler

Dalat bush warbler

Sichuan bush warbler

Baikal bush warbler

Long-tailed bush warbler

Russet bush warbler

Taiwan bush warbler

West Himalayan bush warbler

Voting ended onApr 30, 2025

[best-bird-tournament]

Grasshopper warbler (Locustella) - round 1, section 1

Which is the best bird?

Lanceolated warbler

Brown bush warbler

Long-billed bush warbler

Chinese bush warbler

Savi's warbler

Common grasshopper warbler

River warbler

Sulawesi bush warbler

Seram bush warbler

Buru bush warbler

Voting ended onApr 18, 2025

[herpsandbirds]

Do you perhaps have any pictures of the Friendly Bush Warbler?

I knew the bush warblers as a group, but I had never heard of this species... I thought you were asking for a bush warbler, that is friendly :3

There are not a lot of clear images of this bird, apparently they can be somewhat secretive? Or perhaps not many people make it to Borneo to photograph this bird.

Friendly Bush Warbler (Locustella accentor), family Locustellidae, order Passeriformes, endemic to Borneo

Some of the birds in this family were once placed in the "old world warbler" family, Sylviidae, such as the Bush Warblers.

photographs by Max Prince & James Eaton

[dendroica]

Warblers sing among the reeds | The Guardian

Familiar summer-morning bird song rises from the trees, reeds and bushes – song thrush, wren, reed bunting and the rhythmic, steady, repeated “chit-chit-chit” of a reed warbler. A nearby sedge warbler competes, blaring out its more hurried, chaotic whirrs, chatters and whistles from the top of a small tree.

There’s another sound, barely perceptible among the rustling of the trees in the breeze and the other birds, but it gradually becomes clearer – a continuous metallic whirr, like a fishing reel spinning. It’s the song of a grasshopper warbler – a small, brown, streaky bird, similar to a sedge or reed warbler. But there’s not much chance of finding it. Notoriously hard to see, the grasshopper warbler tends to throw its voice over long distances, while it stays out of sight. Gilbert White described the bird as “the most artful creature, skulking in the thickest part of a bush”. I scan the vegetation carefully, but this one is skulking as well.

A strong birdwatcher’s urge compels me to follow the sound and to try to see the warbler, but there’s no public footpath towards it, across the marsh and dense grass, and I know from experience that it will stay hidden....

Grasshopper warblers are rare in Britain, but they can be heard in West Sussex in this sort of riverside, marshy habitat, usually from mid-April, when the birds first return for the summer. They rarely stay to breed – most seem to move on somewhere else. I haven’t heard one here this year before today, so has this male bred elsewhere, and is now already passing through on its way south again?