Northern Wheatear

How to identify

Field marks

1. Rump and tail white
2. Tail tip with a black inverted T-shaped marking
3. Summer male with gray upperparts and black wings and face mask

Male, female and young

Summer male with gray upperparts and black wings and face mask; female pale brown above and buff below; autumn male resembles the female but retains black wings.

Voice

A typical “chat chack”, also given in flight.

Where and when it's recorded

Northern Wheatear has been recorded at 1,590 of the 8,171 birding hotspots we track, in 121 countries and regions.

Records by month Northern Hemisphere

Where it's recorded most

1. GambellUnited States2,186 records
2. SkokholmUnited Kingdom1,434 records
3. Spurn Bird Observatory Recording AreaUnited Kingdom1,393 records

Countries and regions with the most records

United KingdomSpainPortugalNorwayUnited StatesSwedenKenyaTürkiye

eBird records via GBIF up to 2024-12-31. A record means someone listed it; more records partly mean more birders, not more birds.

About

The northern wheatear or wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe) is a small passerine bird in the Old World flycatcher family. It is the most widespread member of the wheatear genus Oenanthe in Europe and North and Central Asia. The northern wheatear is a migratory insectivorous species breeding in open stony country in Europe and east across the Palearctic with footholds in northeastern Canada and Greenland as well as in northwestern Canada and Alaska.

Excerpt from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 · authors · Read more on Wikipedia

Questions