The Wood Warbler (Phylloscopus sibilatrix) is the most strikingly marked of Sweden's leaf warblers, with a lemon-yellow throat and eyebrow stripe set against olive-green upperparts and a snow-white belly. At 11-12 cm long, with a wingspan of about 19-24 cm and a weight of just 7-12 grams, it is distinctly more colourful than its close relatives the Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff. The upperparts are a mossy olive-green, the throat and upper breast a bright lemon-yellow, and the belly a contrasting snow white, with a clear yellow stripe above the eye completing the pattern. The wings are relatively long, an adaptation suited to its long migratory journey.
Its song is unmistakable: a few clear, ticking "sip" notes that accelerate into a spinning, buzzing trill, "sip-sip-sip-sipsipsirrrrr", often compared to a coin spinning to a stop on a marble slab. Males frequently deliver it during a short song-flight between branches, and also give a quite different, melancholic phrase of falling "piu-piu-piu" notes. Wood Warblers breed in southern and central Sweden, favouring older deciduous woodland, particularly beech and oak stands with tall trees and sparse undergrowth, where the domed, ball-shaped nest with its side entrance is built on the ground, often concealed under ferns or a grass tussock. The female typically lays five to seven eggs and incubates for around two weeks. Food consists of insects and spiders gleaned from leaves and branches, often high in the canopy, with occasional short sallies after flying insects; this insect diet is essential for the growing chicks. The species is a long-distance migrant, arriving in May and departing by August to winter in tropical Africa. The Swedish population, numbering in the tens of thousands of pairs, has been in long-term decline.
Read about this species in Swedish →