Booted Warbler

Hippolais caligata (Lichtenstein, 1823)

Name in other languages

The range of the Booted Warbler extends northeast into the southern part of Central Siberia. In the early part of this century, the species was registered north along the Yenisey to Vorogovo (61° N), and east to the village of Vydrina on the Chuna River in the Angara region (56°50' N). We found the species to be rare in floodplain shrubs of the eastern shore in Yenisey mid taiga near Komsa at 61°50' N. Booted Warblers in the northern part of the mid taiga subzone on the lower reaches of the Yeloguy River kept to shrubs on the edge of an open sedge swamp. One of these birds was collected in July 1958 (Rogacheva et al. 1978). The species is generally rare in taiga. In the south, though, the species is common and even abundant in some places. In the forest-steppe and steppe zones, the species inhabits birch groves, shrubby growths, especially those on the shores of water basins, and clear forests. In the forest plantations of the Iyus forest-steppe, maximum densities of the Booted Warbler occur in forest belts of Caragana with single poplars and elms and a tall grass cover. S.M. Prokofyev (pers. comm.) recorded 5.5 pairs/ha in such areas; this translates to an astonishing 1100 birds/km2. K.A. Yudin also registered the Booted Warbler as abundant in shrubs and tall herbaceous thickets in the Krasnoyarsk forest-steppe (Yudin 1952). The species was also found occasionally in fields interspersed with birch groves in the Kansk forest-steppe (0.6 birds/km2) (Ravkin et al. 1988).

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