UK passage: 320 birds
UK wintering: 8 birds
Family: Leaf Warblers
The adult yellow-browed warbler has olive-green upperparts, with two whitish wingbars on the upperwing. The flight feathers and rectrices are brown with green edges, while the tertials have pale yellow edges, and the secondaries have narrow white tips. The underparts are pale cream, sometimes with a pale yellow tinge on the flanks.
On the head, the crown is dull olive-green, the cheeks are pale olive, and the chin and throat are white. It has a long, whitish or pale yellow supercilium which gives the species its name, and a narrow dark line that runs through the eye from the lores to the ear coverts. The bill is black with a yellow base, the eyes are dark brown, and the legs are dark brown to grey-brown with yellower feet. Males and females look alike.
Juveniles are similar to adults but they have browner upperparts with a darker crown, and white underparts washed with yellow. The flight feathers and tail are dark brown with pale edges, and the wing covers have pale yellow tips.
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The yellow-browed warbler breeds from June to early August and produces one brood per season, although a replacement clutch may be laid if the first is lost to predators. It is socially monogamous for the breeding season, although multiple females have been known to nest in a single male’s territory.
It builds in nest in dense vegetation hidden near the ground in tussocks, shrubs, or holes between the roots of conifers, or against a fallen branch or decaying tree stump. The female builds the nest alone which is a small, domed structure made from dry grass, pine needles, moss, strips of rotting wood, plant fibres, and animal hair.
The yellow-browed warbler lays 2-6 white eggs with reddish-brown speckles, which are incubated by the female alone for 11-14 days. The chicks are brooded by the female but fed by both parents. They fledge about 12-13 days after hatching but depend on their parents for food for another 12-13 days, and reach sexual maturity at 1 year.
The yellow-browed warbler feeds primarily on insects and their larvae such as mayflies, damselflies, butterflies, moths, dragonflies, cockroaches, beetles, ants, wasps, and bees. It also eats spiders, small crustaceans and molluscs, and occasionally seeds.
If forages in groups, pairs, and alone, usually catching prey by sallying, but it also hovers to glean insects from beneath leaves and vegetation.
Yellow-browed warblers can be seen in the British Isles between September and November along the east coast of Scotland, and the east and south coasts of England. Once a scarce migrant, numbers have been increasing recent years. Look out for them in coastal trees and scrub, particularly in sycamore.
Britain's Birds
RSPB Handbook Of British Birds
Collins Bird Guide
The yellow-browed warbler was formerly considered to include three subspecies, among them P. i. humei and P. i. mandellii, but these have since been reclassified as a separate species, Hume’s leaf warbler (Phylloscopus humei). The two species differ in both appearance and vocalisation.
