Siberian Rubythroat

Siberian Rubythroat (Luscinia calliope) is a small brown chat whose adult male has a brilliant ruby-red throat bordered by black and white facial stripes. Body shape, bill structure, plumage pattern and voice provide the strongest field characters. Age, sex and season may alter its appearance, so identification should combine several features and careful direct field comparisons with similar species in the same habitat (Wikipedia, general species account).

It breeds in dense northern Asian scrub, forages low for insects and migrates to South and Southeast Asia, where it remains skulking in thick vegetation outside the breeding season. Its movements and social behaviour vary through the year, with breeding birds generally more dispersed and non-breeding birds gathering where food is concentrated. The Korean vertebrate catalogue used for this guide records the species in South Korea (Wikipedia, general species account; Wildlife of Korea occurrence records).