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Icterine Warbler (Hippolais icterina) — photo 1 of 5
© Jevgenijs Slihto from Riga, Latvia CC BY 2.0

Reed warblers · Perching birds

Icterine Warbler

Hippolais icterina

Summer visitor

Voice

Song

Jochem verweij

0:49

Song

Jochem verweij

0:34

Call

Jochem verweij

0:14

How to recognize it

  • Fairly large warbler; big head, broad-based bill, long wings, short square-ended tail

  • Greyish-green above, uniformly light yellow below

  • Faint yellowish eyebrow and pale eye ring

  • Fast nasal babbling song with mimicry; call a sharp teck

About the species

The Icterine Warbler is a plain-looking but lively leaf-searching warbler with a large head, long wings, and a short tail. Its overall look is soft greenish-yellow, more olive above.

What stands out most is the voice and the way it moves. The song is a fast stream of imitated sounds, and the usual call is sharp and metallic; when singing, it often throws its head back.

It uses open woodland, edges, parks, gardens, orchards, and hedges with trees and some shrub layer. It feeds mainly on insects picked from foliage, then adds fruit in late summer, and it winters in sub-Saharan Africa.

Did you know?

  • Top mimics of central Russia

    In central Russia the Icterine Warbler ranks among the strongest avian mimics, alongside Marsh and Garden Warblers, Red-backed Shrike and Starling.

  • Jaundice cure

    Pliny claimed in his Natural History that a single glimpse of an Icterine Warbler was enough to cure a person of jaundice. The bird's name traces to the Greek ikteros, meaning either a greenish-yellow bird or the disease itself.

  • All winter south of the equator

    The Icterine Warbler is one of only two Palaearctic passerines whose entire population winters south of the equator — the other is the Lesser Grey Shrike.

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Sources