Apart from the delightful song that Yellow-bellied Prinias (Prinia flaviventris rafflesithese) make, they have a variety of calls which include a warning call that sounds like a cat mewing. Wells (2007) describes it as “cheeair”, Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive (2019) as “pzeeeu” and Robson (2002) as “pzeeew”.
Sonogram and waveforms (above) show that the call is short at 0.5 seconds and recurring at 2-2.5 second intervals and repeated many times (noted up to 15 times).
A recording of the call is located here: https://www.xeno-canto.org/505100
An image of the adult female making the call is shown above; they must be breeding.
Amar-Singh HSS (Dato’ Dr) – Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia
Location: Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia
Habitat: Secondary growth at fringe of city
Date: 30th October 2019
Equipment: Nikon D500 SLR with Nikon AF-S Nikkor 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR, handheld