The marsh warbler breeds in a variety of mostly damp habitats, but in Africa winters mainly in dry, well-vegetated areas.

This insectivorous warbler can be easily confused with several close relatives, but the imitative song of the male is highly distinctive.

The marsh warbler was formally described in 1798 by the German naturalist Johann Matthäus Bechstein under the scientific name Motacilla s. Sylvia palustris.

The male's distinctive song is useful for identification, as no other member of the genus mimics other birds to any significant extent.

The marsh warbler breeds in the middle latitudes of Europe and western Asia, from the English Channel to about 70 degrees east.

In recent decades it has expanded its range to the north, with increasing numbers of birds breeding in Scandinavia and north-west Russia.

It may breed in urban brownfield sites with suitable vegetation, for instance in Berlin, and also occasionally in arable crops.

In the eastern part of its range, it breeds on dry hillsides with shrubs and in open woodland, as well as the kind of damper habitats it frequents in the west.

[7] The marsh warbler winters mainly in south-east Africa, from Cape Province north to Zambia and Malawi.

It makes use of a range of well-vegetated habitats, from moist scrub to dense thickets and woodland edge, at altitudes up to 2400m.

Birds tend to spend much of the autumn somewhere in north-east or east Africa, before continuing south to arrive on their wintering grounds in December or January.

Birds breeding in south-east Europe, for instance on the Black Sea coast, may arrive there by late April.

On the western and northern edge of their range, such as in England, birds do not tend to arrive until the end of May or early June.

[8] In some areas, such as Bulgaria, marsh warblers suffer significant levels of parasitism by common cuckoos.