Tree warbler

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Tree Warblers

Seveeral Hippolais species.

Scientific classification

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Sylviidae
Genus:	Hippolais

Species

H. caligata
H. rama
H. pallida
H. languida
H. olivetorum
H. opaca
H. polyglotta
H. icterina

Tree warblers are medium-sized birds belonging to the genus Hippolais of the Old World warbler family Sylviidae. They occur in Europe, Africa and western Asia.

These warblers are always associated with trees, though normally in fairly open woodland rather than tight plantations. They are quite clumsy in their movements.

These are plump, strong-looking birds with long bills, strong feet and long wing. Most are unstreaked greenish or brownish above and cream or white below. They are insectivorous, but will occasionally take berries or seeds.

Species breeding in temperate regions are usually strongly migratory.

Considerable evidence^{[citation needed]} suggests that the genus Hippolais should be merged into Acrocephalus. DNA studies^{[citation needed]} indicated that at least the olivaceous and Booted/Sykes's warbler grouping are more closely related to Acrocephalus species than they are to Icterine and Melodious Warblers and as a result the Dutch CSNA has moved these four species into Acrocephalus^{[citation needed]}. A subsequent review^{[citation needed]} by the BOURC retained the genus Hippolais, although this was done because it was felt that more evidence was needed, rather than because of a belief that the status quo was correct - no evidence was put forward to refute the DNA findings. Mark Constantine, in "The Sound Approach to Birding"^{[citation needed]} illustrated that there is extensive overlap in song types between species from the two genera, and that vocally, no characters existed which enabled species to be sorted into one genus or the other. Colin Bradshaw, in British Birds^{[citation needed]}, has written several articles on morphological similarity between cross-generic species-pairs e.g. Eastern Olivaceous and Blyth's Reed warblers, Paddyfield and Booted warblers.