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Pied Wheatear

Pied Wheatear

Oenanthe pleschanka

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The Pied Wheatear is a small wheatear of rocky, open country that breeds from south-eastern Europe across Central Asia to China and winters mainly in East Africa and southern Arabia. The breeding male is strikingly black and white, with a pale crown and nape and a black back, face and throat; the female is browner. It nests in holes in stony country.

Did you know?

  • It was described by Ivan Lepechin in 1770.
  • The Cyprus Wheatear was formerly treated as its subspecies.

Voice

Call

About the species

Identification

The size of a Northern Wheatear (about 14–16.5 cm). The breeding male is easy to recognise: the back, wings, face and throat are black, while the nape, crown and underparts are white; the tail shows the typical wheatear black-and-white pattern. Females and young are grey-brown above and pale below and can be hard to separate from other wheatears.

Family

Turdidae

Size

Small (sparrow)

Colours

black, white, brown

About the habitat

Stony slopes, hilly steppe with sparse vegetation and rocky uplands; in winter rocky areas and plains with thorny scrub.

Diet

Mainly small invertebrates – ants, grasshoppers, beetles, flies, moths, larvae and spiders – and some seeds.

Behaviour

Usually seen singly or in pairs on rocky, open ground, perching on stones or bushes, alert and tail-bobbing, and making short sallies to catch prey. The male sings a varied, often imitative song from a perch or in a short song flight. It nests in a hole, under a stone or in a crevice, laying four to six eggs.

Sources

Photo: Ron Knight from Seaford, East Sussex, United Kingdom, CC BY 2.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pied Wheatear (Oenanthe pleschanka) (8079431820).jpg

Sound: Jochem Verweij, XC929263, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://xeno-canto.org/929263

Text: Wikipedia (English) + FinBIF species descriptions + Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0; FinBIF: CC BY 4.0; Wikipedia: CC BY-SA 4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pied_wheatear

See also