Yellow-eyed Babbler

The yellow-eyed babbler is a babbler about 18cm long with a short black bill and a long graduated tail, the central feathers about twice as long as the outer ones. It is brown above with cinnamon wings and whitish-buff below, with white lores and eyebrow and an orange-yellow eye-ring in adults. The sexes look alike. Populations differ in plumage and bill shape, the Sri Lankan race having black nostrils and a stouter bill. Its genus is now grouped with the parrotbills rather than the Old World babblers (Wikipedia, general species account).

It lives in shrubland, grassland and wetland, usually in grassy or thorny scrub, across South and South-east Asia from Pakistan and India to China. Three subspecies are recognised. In India it is resident across a very large range; SoIB 2023 finds its trends stable and rates it a Low conservation priority (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).