Large-billed Leaf Warbler Phylloscopus magnirostris     photos Sid Francis

Secretive in habit, you hear this bird a lot more than seeing it - and its vocalizations, especially the song, are so strident and distinctive making identification simple. Plumage wise, with the full cap and wing bars, it resembles greenish but the bill form is quite different - long and evenly dark rather than the stout billed greenish with its characteristic yellow under mandible. Also a rather secretive bird - can be a problem to see without playback

Similar species - the photograhed bird is on the same bush and shots taken the same day as the photographed Greenish Warbler - the most likely species where confusion could occur. However, being a skulker, unlike open perching greenish, the large-billed was typically picked up on its song and call - easily identified before being seen. So distinctice are those vocals, that they usually make similarities in plumage irrelevant for identification. All other leaf warblers with full caps have differentiating features - such as size, wing-bars and bills - that easily distinguish them from large-billed.

Vocalizations - the song sounds like the first three notes of three blind mice, as played in a round, one rendition slightly after the other - de de-dud dud-de de, very distinctive. It's also quite a loud, penetrating song - one you can often hear from a moving car. The call is also distinctive and relatively loud - a repeated call of  yhea-te-sis. .    .

Habitat - in moist, native broadleaf and mixed forest - we start to hear this bird around the 2,000m mark, and have also seen in dense alpine scrub around 3,500m. 

Song here     Sid Francis iNaturalist

Call here - xeno-canto     Peter Boesman, XC916448. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/916448