Cettia castaneocoronata
Silhouette: Jiekun He · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~20% in a week ~40%
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 |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Chestnut-headed Tesia sighting in Namdapha National Park on a given day, based on 84 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 141st most-seen of the 298 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 20%, and over a week to about 40%, if each day is a fresh chance.
January
In that month about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Chestnut-headed Tesia in Namdapha National Park on a given day, against under 5% in March–May and October–December, the lowest months. That is one of Namdapha National Park's driest months, with about 50 mm of rain against 660 mm in July. June to September have too few records to rate.
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.
Among the best
Of the 6 parks where we can rate Chestnut-headed Tesia sightings, Namdapha National Park ranks 3rd at about 10%, level with the leaders once rounded. The best odds are in Langtang National Park (Nepal, about 10%) and Royal Manas National Park (Bhutan, about 10%).
Same family: Cettiidae
The closest relatives of the Chestnut-headed Tesia that you can see in Namdapha National Park (family Cettiidae, Bush Warblers and Allies) are Yellow-bellied Warbler (about 40%), Slaty-bellied Tesia (about 30%) and Rufous-faced Warbler (about 30%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Chestnut-headed Tesia is recorded against all the birds logged in Namdapha National Park (84 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.
