Mountain Tailorbird

The mountain tailorbird is a 12–13-centimetre, long-billed forest bird that often carries its tail cocked. It is green above and yellow below, with an orange-rufous forehead and crown, a pale eyebrow, black eye-stripe and grey face, throat and upper breast. Young birds are duller. Although called a tailorbird, it belongs to the bush-warbler family Cettiidae and gives a thin, high, tinkling song (Hong Kong Bird Watching Society; eBird).

It inhabits dense brush and understorey in hill and submontane forest from northeastern India and southern China through the mountains of mainland Southeast Asia. Birds are usually solitary but may accompany mixed-species flocks, moving restlessly through low foliage while taking small invertebrates. Its distribution includes both moist lowland and montane forest zones, and its preference for tangled cover often makes voice more useful than plumage for locating it (eBird; Wikipedia, general species account).