Middendorff's grasshopper warbler

Middendorff's grasshopper warbler (Helopsaltes ochotensis) is a species of Old World warbler in the family Locustellidae. It breeds in eastern Siberia to northern Japan, Kamchatka Peninsula and northern Kuril Islands. It winters in the Philippines, Borneo and Sulawesi and in small numbers in China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan and the U.S.A.

Middendorff's grasshopper warbler
In Hokkaido, Japan
Conservation status
Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Locustellidae
Genus:	Helopsaltes
Species:	H. ochotensis
Binomial name
Helopsaltes ochotensis (Middendorff, 1853)
Distribution of Middendorff's grasshopper warbler   Breeding   Non-breeding
Synonyms
Locustella ochotensis

The common name commemorates Alexander Theodor von Middendorff (1815–1894), a German–Russian naturalist who traveled extensively in Siberia.^[2]

Description

Middendorff's grasshopper warbler is 15.5 cm (6.1 in) in length. The crown, nape, lores and eye-stripe are greyish brown. The mantle is browner and more olive. The supercilium is pale creamy, extending to the ear coverts. The rump and uppertail coverts are more yellowish or rufous brown. The graduated, white-tipped tail may appear rounded. Its song is a high-pitched, spaced chit, chit, which precedes a trilled trrrrrrrr-schoy-schoy-schoy, call; tluk, tluk,...; it also performs a short song flight. Its habitat is forests near water and scrubwoods.^[3]