UKBirds

Whinchat

Saxicola rubetra

The Whinchat Saxicola rubetra is a small migratory passerine bird breeding in Europe and western Asia and wintering in Africa.

Its scientific name means "small rock-dweller", in reference to its habitat. Saxicola derives from Latin saxum ("rock") + incola ("dwelling"); rubetra is a Latin term for a small bird.

The Whinchat is similar in size to its relative the European Robin (Erithacus rubecula), 12-14 cm long and 13-26 g weight. Both sexes have brownish upperparts mottled darker, a buff throat and breast, a pale buff to whitish belly, and a blackish tail with white bases to the outer tail feathers.

The male in breeding plumage has blackish face mask almost encircled by a strong white supercilium and malar stripe, a bright orange-buff throat and breast, and small white wing patches on the greater coverts and inner median coverts. The female is duller overall, in particular having browner face mask, pale buffy-brown breast, and a buff supercilium and malar stripe, and smaller or no white wing patches. Males in immature and winter plumage and are similar to females, except that adult males retain the white wing patches all year.

Though fairly similar to females and immatures of the European Stonechat S. rubicola, the Whinchat can readily be distinguished by its conspicuous supercilium and whiter belly, and also in western Europe, by being paler overall than the western European Stonechat subspecies S. rubicola hibernans. It also differs structurally in being slightly slimmer and less 'dumpy', and having longer wingtips (an adaptation to its long-distance migration). It is more easily confused with female or immature Siberian Stonechat S. maura, which (also being a long-distance migrant) shares the longer wingtips; however, Siberian Stonechat can be distinguished by its conspicuous unmarked pale orange-buff rump (in Whinchat, the rump is the same mottled brown colour as the back).

Its main call is a hue-tac-tac, the 'tac' softer and less grating than that of the European Stonechat; the call is used both for contact between birds and predator alarms. The male has a whistling, crackly but soft song used during the breeding season, consisting of a mixture of soft whistles, tacs and more grating sounds; it is often mimetic, including phrases from the songs of at least 12 other assorted bird species. On the wintering grounds, it often gives alarm calls but only occasionally sings, particularly at the end of winter when starting spring migration.

The Whinchat is a migratory species breeding in Europe and western Asia from Ireland and northern Portugal east to the Ob River basin near Novosibirsk, and from northern Norway south to central Spain, central Italy, northern Greece, and the Caucasus Mountains.

Birds arrive on the breeding grounds between the end of April and mid May, and depart between mid August and mid September (odd birds lingering to October). They winter primarily in tropical sub-Saharan Africa from Senegal east to Kenya and south to Zambia, arriving in western Africa at the start of the dry season in late September to November, and leaving between February and March. Small numbers also winter in northwestern Africa in Morocco, northern Algeria and Tunisia.

Fairly common across its wide range, the Whinchat is classified as a species of Least Concern by the IUCN. Some populations are however in serious decline, particularly in the west of its range in Britain, Ireland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany, primarily due to agricultural intensification. In Britain it is amber-listed with an unfavourable conservation status; it all but disappeared from former lowland breeding areas in the south and east between surveys in 1968-72 and 1988-91, remaining common only in upland areas of the north and west where low-intensity livestock rearing is the main land use.

Vagrants have reached northwest of the breeding range to Iceland, west on migration to the Canary Islands and Cape Verde, and south of the wintering range to northern South Africa.