Range Description

This species predominantly breeds across Siberia and the Himalayas, and winters in the northern Indian Subcontinent, northern south-east Asia, southern China, and southern Japan, but there are also some resident subspecies, including neilgherriensis in the hills of south-west India, and horsfieldi from Java to Sumbawa, Indonesia. Subspecies major was previously considered specifically distinct and Critically Endangered, with only c.58 breeding birds estimated to remain in 1996. It is confined to the islands of Amami-ooshima and Kakeroma-jima in the northern Nansei Shoto Islands, Japan.