Brown-throated Fulvetta Fulvetta ludlowi Scientific name definitions

11.5 cm. Small neat fulvetta, plumage in soft browns above, with distinctive streaking on throat and breast. Forehead, crown, ear-coverts and nape are rufes­cent-tinged milky brown, lores to above and below eye and lateral crownstripe area fractionally darker (giving faint suggestion of bands); mantle and upper back pink-tinged milky brown, scapulars, rump and uppertail-coverts rich rufous-chestnut; uppertail as ­mantle but darker, and with outer fringes rufous-chestnut; upperwing-coverts rufous-chestnut, primaries blackish-brown, offsetting narrow whitish wingpanel below pale rufous-chestnut edges of secondaries; throat, submoustachial region and upper breast whitish with broad milky-brown streaks, lower breast, upper flanks and upper belly pinkish-tinged soft gray-brown, lower flanks and vent rufous-chestnut but paler, center of lower belly paler still and more buff-tinged; iris brown to reddish-brown; bill dark horn, flesh to pinkish-brown base of lower mandible; legs dark horn-brown to fleshy-brown. Sexes similar. Juvenile is paler than adult.

Eastern Bhutan, northeastern India (Arunachal Pradesh) and adjacent southeastern Tibet and northern Myanmar.

Low bushes and bamboo stands in rhododendron forest. In Bhutan at 3000–4000 m in summer and 2200–3200 m in winter, when apparently prefers well-developed stands of cool broadleaf forest; in India 2450–3350 m in summer, some descending to 2150 m in winter; in Tibet found at 2300–3050 (occasionally down to 2125 m) in summer.

Songs include a high thin sibilant “see-see-spir’r’r”, first 2 notes clear, ending a short, lower, sputtery trill.

Not globally threatened. Restricted-range species: present in Eastern Himalayas EBA. Uncommon in eastern Bhutan; locally fairly common in India, where present in and/or near Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary (Arunachal Pradesh). Fairly common in southeastern Tibet.