About Cholornis unicolor (Hodgson, 1843)
This bird is commonly known as the brown parrotbill, also called the brown suthora, with the currently accepted scientific name Cholornis unicolor, originally described by Brian Houghton Hodgson in 1843. It is a parrotbill species that ranges across the central and eastern Himalayas, and has been recorded in Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, and Nepal. It measures 17–19 cm (6.7–7.5 in) in length, and is a grey-brown bird with a long tail and a characteristic small, yellowish, parrot-like bill. A dark stripe runs above its eyes and along the sides of its crown. Brown parrotbills move in small groups, and will sometimes join mixed-species foraging flocks. Originally described by Hodgson in the genus Hemirhynchus, this species was later moved to the genus Heteromorpha; it was previously classified under the scientific name Paradoxornis unicolor. It is now usually treated as a member of the family Paradoxornithidae, where its closest relative is the three-toed parrotbill. Two described subspecies are generally not considered valid: canaster, described by Thayer and Bangs in 1912 from Hsikang, and saturatior, described by Rothschild in 1921 from Yunnan.
