Sylvia curruca
Silhouette: Martin Bulla, based on John Cox's illustration · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~30% in a week ~60%
The lesser whitethroat (Curruca curruca) is a common and widespread Old World warbler which breeds in temperate Europe, except the southwest, and in the western and central Palearctic. This small passerine bird is strongly migratory, wintering in Africa just south of the Sahara, Arabia and India.
Unlike many sylviid warblers, the sexes are almost identical. This is a small species with a grey back, whitish underparts, a grey head with a darker "bandit mask" through the eyes and a white throat. It is slightly smaller than the common whitethroat, and lacks the chestnut wings and uniform head-face colour of that species. The lesser whitethroat's song is a fast and rattling sequence of tet or che calls, quite different from the common whitethroat's scolding song.
Like most "warblers", it is insectivorous, but will also take berries and other soft fruit. This is a bird of fairly open country and cultivation, with large bushes for nesting and some trees. The nest is built in low shrub or brambles, and 3 to 7 eggs are laid.
The lesser whitethroat was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial... Wikipedia →
Recording0:22
Austria · 2025
© E. A. · iNaturalist · CC BY 4.0
Recording0:16
Russia · 2024
© Dina Nesterkova · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0
Recording0:14
Germany · 2026
© Frederic Griesbaum · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hanover Zoo | 🇩🇪 Germany |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Lesser Whitethroat sighting in Mercantour National Park on a given day, based on 23 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 47th most-seen of the 79 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 30%, and over a week to about 60%, if each day is a fresh chance.
August
In that month about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Lesser Whitethroat in Mercantour National Park on a given day, against about 10% in February, April–July and September–October, the lowest months. That is one of Mercantour National Park's driest months, with about 50 mm of rain against 140 mm in October. March and November–January have too few records to rate.
Between 8 and 11 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Lesser Whitethroat sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
10th of 31
Of the 31 parks where we can rate Lesser Whitethroat sightings, Mercantour National Park ranks 10th at about 10%. The best odds are in Keoladeo National Park (India, about 50%), Biebrza National Park (Poland, about 30%) and Białowieża National Park (Poland, about 20%). All parks ranked.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Lesser Whitethroat is recorded against all the birds logged in Mercantour National Park (23 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.
