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Cetti's Warblers are small warblers. Both sexes look alike. Of all the Eurasian warblers, Cetti's Warbler is the only one with chestnut hues in its plumage. They have an off-white throat patch and straight off-white supercilia which, together with slim eye-rings, combine to their characteristic facial pattern. The ear coverts and the front are brownish-grey, while the upperparts, from frons to tail, including the wings, are greyish chestnut-brown. The irises are dark-brown, while the short bill has a dark-grey upper mandible and a horn-coloured lower one. The legs and feet are pinkish-grey.

The overall distribution of this species can be assessed, and specific locations where birds have been spotted can be found, based on individual sighting reports submitted by birdwatchers to ebird.org .

The global distribution of Cetti's Warbler is available HERE .

Their overall distribution ranges from a broad area in near-coastal north-western Africa, via western and southern Europe, into south-eastern Europe, Asia Minor, parts of the (near-coastal) Middle East and parts of Iran and Iraq into south-western and central Asia, up to Kazachstan, with a few reports from north-western India. Thereby, practically their entire range is limited between 30 and 50 degrees northern latitude. They are generally absent from the major Eurasian deserts and high mountain ranges and do not reach most of the Indian subcontinent.

In Europe Cetti's Warblers are almost entirely sedentary. They are present in all of Iberia and otherwise around the (near-)coastal fringe of the northern Mediterranean Sea (including all of Italy and Greece), and northward along the West coast of France towards Belgium and the Netherlands up to the Ijsselmeer, and also in the South and Centre of England and in Wales. They are also present on all Mediterranean islands. In the South-east their range extends along the West coast of the Black Sea as well, up to the border of Romania with Ukraine.

Cetti's Warblers have a preference for dense shrubbery, also dry reeds, near water, but not standing in water. This vegetation may be in small clumps, but must be dense. They rarely venture out into more open country.

J. Pires reports spotting Cetti's Warblers semi-regularly in the area from Mora, Evora, Portugal to the Tejo estuary and along the Sorraia River, in Coruche, Santarem, Portugal. All sighting, photographic and audio information presented on this page has been kindly contributed by J. Pires.