Pale-legged Leaf Warbler

The pale-legged leaf warbler is a twelve-centimetre member of the leaf-warbler family. Its upperparts are brownish, with a contrasting grey-brown crown and nape. A strong whitish eyebrow begins behind the forehead and continues well past the eye, above a dark-brown eyeline that broadens toward the rear. Pale-brown mottling marks the cheeks, while the throat, breast and belly are whitish, the latter two washed pale brown. White undertail coverts contrast with an olive-brown rump and upper tail coverts that lack a green cast. (Wikipedia, general species account)

The species occurs in Manchuria and spends the winter in Southeast Asia, using temperate forest as its natural habitat. Its voice offers a useful field clue: the song is rendered as a rapidly repeated tiriririririririri. Robert Swinhoe formally described the species in 1860, and it is now placed in Phylloscopus within the family Phylloscopidae. The combination of the long, sharply contrasting eyebrow, dark eye-line, whitish throat and pale legs is therefore more useful for recognition than bright colour, because the remainder of the plumage is largely subdued brown and off-white. (Wikipedia, general species account)