First-winter birds are plainer but show warm brown ear-coverts and have an obvious ring around the eye.

The breeding range extends from the Himalayas locally across China to south-eastern Siberia, Korea and northern Japan.

[4] The species is a vagrant to Kazakhstan and in October 2004 the first European record occurred at Fair Isle in Scotland.

E.f. arcuata is found in the Himalayas and south-west and central parts of China; it is darker with broader breastbands.

The third subspecies E. f. kuatunensis lives in south-east China and is darker and more rufous above with narrower breastbands.