The Common Whitethroat (Sylvia communis),called Törnsångare in Skåne, is a common and widespread typical warbler which breeds throughout Europe and across much of temperate western Asia. This small passerine bird is strongly migratory, and winters in tropical Africa, Arabia, and Pakistan.
Range map from www.oiseaux.net - Ornithological Portal Oiseaux.net
www.oiseaux.netis one of those MUST visit pages if you're in to bird watching. You can find just about everything there
This is one of several Sylvia species that has distinct male and female plumages. Both sexes are mainly brown above and buff below, with chestnut fringes to the secondary remiges. The adult male has a grey head and a white throat. The female lacks the grey head, and the throat is duller.
The whitethroat's song is fast and scratchy, with a scolding tone. The hoarse, a little bit nasal call sounds like wed-wed or woid-woid. The warning cry is long-pulled, rough tschehr which resembles that of the Dartford warbler.
Recorded with my ZOOM H5 Handy recorder. High Pass Filter applied Audacity
I heard a bird in the bushes and I was thinking about the Tui I recorded on New Zealand. It was a very strange sound. I made the recording and it is a Thrush Nightingale as we can hear in recording XC484745
Thanks to Nordöstra Skånes Fågelklubbwww.spoven.comfor helping me identify the Nightingale together with the Common Whitethroat in the same bush
This species may appear to be closely related to the lesser whitethroat, the species having evolved only during the end of the last ice age similar to the willow warbler and chiffchaffs. However, researchers found the presence of a white throat is an unreliable morphological marker for relationships in Sylvia, and the greater and lesser whitethroats are not closely related.
Chestnut wing patches, like white throats, seem to be plesiomorphic, but indicate phylogeny better. Nonetheless, apart from the whitethroat not being closely related to the lesser whitethroat group, little can be resolved as it seems a fairly basal taxon.
Eggs, Collection Museum Wiesbaden, Germany
By Klaus Rassinger und Gerhard Cammerer, Museum Wiesbaden - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37326692
This is a bird of open country and cultivation, with bushes for nesting. The nest is built in low shrub or brambles, and 3–7 eggs are laid. Like most warblers, it is insectivorous, but will also eat berries and other soft fruit.
The genus name is from Modern Latin silvia, a woodland sprite, related to silva, a wood. The specific communis is Latin for "common".
An older scientific name for the whitethroat is Sylvia cinerea.
Conservation status
Near Threatened (IUCN 3.1)
IUCN Red Listof Threatened Species. Version 2013.2. International Union for Conservation of Nature. Retrieved 26 November 2013.