Cettia castaneocoronata
Silhouette: Jiekun He · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~30%
The chestnut-headed tesia (Cettia castaneocoronata) is a small insectivorous songbird formerly of the "Old World warbler" family but nowadays placed in the bush warbler family (Cettiidae). It is found in Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, and Vietnam. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest and subtropical or tropical moist montane forest.
The chestnut-headed tesia was formally described by the English army officer and zoologist Edward Burton in 1836 under the binomial name Sylvia castaneocoronata. The specific epithet combines the Latin castaneus meaning "chestnut-coloured" and coronatus meaning "crowned". Formerly placed in the genus Tesia, a molecular phylogenetic study published in 2011 found that the chestnut-headed tesia was embedded in a clade containing members of the genus Cettia.
The phylogenetic relationships among the Cettia species are shown below, based on the data by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. It split from the Chestnut-crowned bush warbler about 5 million years ago. Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Langtang National Park | 🇳🇵 Nepal | |
| 2 | Royal Manas National Park | 🇧🇹 Bhutan | |
| 3 | Namdapha National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 4 | Jim Corbett National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 5 | Manas National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 6 | Doi Inthanon National Park | 🇹🇭 Thailand |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Chestnut-headed Tesia sighting in Jim Corbett National Park on a given day, based on 106 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 192nd most-seen of the 368 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 30%, if each day is a fresh chance.
November to January
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Chestnut-headed Tesia in Jim Corbett National Park on a given day, against under 5% in February to October, the lowest months. Those are among Jim Corbett National Park's driest months, with about 20 mm of rain a month against 360 mm in July.
Between 9 am and noon
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Chestnut-headed Tesia sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
4th of 6
Of the 6 parks where we can rate Chestnut-headed Tesia sightings, Jim Corbett National Park ranks 4th at under 5%. The best odds are in Langtang National Park (Nepal, about 10%), Royal Manas National Park (Bhutan, about 10%) and Namdapha National Park (India, about 10%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Chestnut-headed Tesia is recorded against all the birds logged in Jim Corbett National Park (106 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
