can someone ID please?

[Kitster]

same birds, I'm pretty sure it's some sort of warbler.

these are very small birds as big as a thumb, and they frequent bushes and low trees.

Thanks,

Kit

[Romy Ocon]

Hi Kit, I moved your thread here so it has more chances of catching the eyes of our ID experts. Please indicate location of capture to make things easier on the experts.

[Kitster]

Sorry for posting it on the wrong place Romy. and thanks for putting it in the right place.

I don't really know that much about these birds.

while chasing them around, I noticed that they stay on the low bushes.

First time I saw them, I thought they were butterflies, they also love the grass (Bermuda grass). they don't fly far from where you first spot them, and they get inside thick brush. from one of the pictures I took, they eat insects...there's one picture there with a fly in the beak, i believe.

I don't know if this helps, but this is pretty much how much i know about them...


[Edit]

Dubai UAE, Dubai Investment Park, Jebel Ali

[Romy Ocon]

Hi Kit,

One of the basic info needed to establish the ID of a bird is to indicate the geographic location where it was seen or photographed (e.g. Dubai, Mindanao, Luzon, etc.).

Romy

May 28, 2008 11:42:55 GMT Kitster said:

Sorry for posting it on the wrong place Romy. and thanks for putting it in the right place.

I don't really know that much about these birds.

while chasing them around, I noticed that they stay on the low bushes.

First time I saw them, I thought they were butterflies, they also love the grass (Bermuda grass). they don't fly far from where you first spot them, and they get inside thick brush. from one of the pictures I took, they eat insects...there's one picture there with a fly in the beak, i believe.

I dont know if this helps, but this is pretty much how much i know about them...

[Kitster]

Edited it thanks again Romy

[steve pryor]

Kit,
Off the top of my head it is a Prinia sp. I think the only one possibly ranging in Dubai would be gracilis. Need my books to confirm however.

[Bob Kaufman]

Steve, could it possibly be a Hippolais (probably pallida)?

Usually Prinia gracilis has a barred undertail which Kit's birds doesn't have.

[Kitster]

Thanks guys... interesting there is an eastern olivaceous warbler and a graceful prinia here in the UAE. So now, we're pretty close. could be one or the other.

[steve pryor]

May 29, 2008 4:17:46 GMT Bob Kaufman said:

Steve, could it possibly be a Hippolais (probably pallida)?

Usually Prinia gracilis has a barred undertail which Kit's birds doesn't have.

Hi Bob,
I still have to put these photos through the crucible of my books, so just to respond on this question. The first photo, unless my eyes are playing tricks, show faint cross barring on the undertail. The reason that I am not considering Hippolais, though I have not eliminated the genus, is that the tail just doesn't tell me Hippolais - their tails resemble more Sylvia warbler tails - these look like Prinia tails (or certain Cisticola) to me - longer, more slender, slightly flaring out distally (i.e., the thickness at the tail base is generally more restricted in Prinia respect to the retrical terminus).