Nepal Cupwing

The Nepal cupwing, also known as the Nepal wren-babbler or immaculate cupwing, is a small passerine of the family Pnoepygidae, 8.5–10 cm long and brownish-olive. It has dark scaling on the upperparts and paler scaling on the underparts, a scaly breast with brown central feathers, pale edging on the flight feathers and a very short tail. It is native to the Himalayan foothills: a regular resident in Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Nepal and an uncommon resident around Zhangmu in Tibet, in dense montane forest (Wikipedia, general species account).

The song is distinctive and higher pitched than the other species in the genus, a steady series of thin, short, rapid, modulated whistles that descend in pitch. It is not migratory, but altitudinal movements occur, with winter records down to 250 m; it occurs regularly between 1,800 and 2,200 m and possibly breeds as high as 3,100 m. SoIB 2023 treats it as a Himalayan endemic and rates it a Moderate conservation priority, with a Restricted range of about 30,000 km² and insufficient data on trends (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).