Grey-breasted Prinia

Grey-breasted Prinia Prinia hodgsonii was photographed in a crop field in the very early morning hence the rather grainy and dark image. The main identification features of the species can be seen in the photo however: long tail; white throat; smoky grey band across the breast; black bill and pink legs. It is a widespread species with a breeding range of over nine million square kilometres covering much of the Indian Subcontinent and south-east Asia. It was recorded more than twenty five times on this trip.

There are five subspecies of which P. h. erro has a geographic range from East Myanmar to Thailand and South Indochina and is likely to be the subspecies seen throughout this trip.

Grey-breasted Prinia is typically found in open woodland, scrub jungle, bushes and hedgerows amidst cultivation and is also found in bamboo jungle, mangrove swamps and reeds. Its distribution extends from Himalayan foothills to Southern India and to eastern Indian states Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Meghalaya and Assam, and extends to Pakistan, Burma, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Yunnan province in southern China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand.

Reference: BirdLife; Wikipedia