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Articles

Vol. 40 No. 3 (2009)

FIRST NORTH AMERICAN RECORDS OF THE RUFOUS-TAILED ROBIN (LUSCINIA SIBILANS)

Submitted
November 27, 2025
Published
July 1, 2009

Abstract

The Rufoous-tailed Robin (Luscinia sibilans) breeds in Asia from the Altai Mountains and upper Yenisei River east to the Amur River basin, Ussuriland, and Sakhalin and south to Transbaikalia and Manchuria (OSJ 2000). Nearest to Alaska is an isolated population in central eastern Kamchatka in the Trukhnika River valley (Dement’ev and Glazkov 1954, Vaurie 1959). The species winters mainly from the Yangtze valley, in southern China, south to Hainan; it is a scarce or uncommon winter visitor in northern Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam (Vaurie 1959, Robson 2000). It migrates primarily over continental Asia and is of only rare and irregular occurrence in Japan, primarily in May along the west coast and on islands of the Sea of Japan (Brazil 1991). In Europe, the Rufoous-tailed Robin has been recorded once each in the fall at Fair Isle, Scotland (Shaw 2004), and in early winter at Białystok, Poland (Grygoruk and Tumiel 2006). This species has been reported three times from North America, all in Alaska.

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