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The pied wheatear (''Oenanthe pleschanka'') is a
wheatear The wheatears are passerine birds of the genus ''Oenanthe''. They were formerly considered to be members of the thrush family, Turdidae, but are now more commonly placed in the flycatcher family, Muscicapidae. This is an Old World group, but ...
, a small insectivorous
passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped') which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines generally have an anisodactyl arrangement of their ...
bird that was formerly classed as a member of the
thrush Thrush may refer to: Birds * Thrush (bird), any of the birds in the family Turdidae ** List of thrush species * Antthrushes, the Formicariidae family of birds * Dohrn's warbler, or Dohrn's thrush-babbler, a species ''Sylvia dohrni'' in the famil ...
family Turdidae, but is now more generally considered to be an
Old World flycatcher The Old World flycatchers are a large family, the Muscicapidae, of small passerine birds restricted to the Old World (Europe, Africa and Asia), with the exception of several vagrants and two species, bluethroat (''Luscinia svecica'') and north ...
(family Muscicapidae). This migratory central Asiatic wheatear occurs from the extreme southeast of Europe to
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
, and has been found wintering in
India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
and northeastern
Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
. It is a very rare vagrant to western
Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...
. The male is a boldly marked white-and-black bird. The white crown tinged with brown contrasts with the black face and throat and white rump. The female is browner, and the head is washed with sandy buff. Females are darker than the females of the northern wheatear, look smaller and show less white on the rump. The tail feathers are white with characteristic black markings, which form an inverted black "T" pattern that resembles the tail of the
western black-eared wheatear The western black-eared wheatear (''Oenanthe hispanica'') is a wheatear, a small migratory passerine bird that was formerly classed as a member of the thrush family Turdidae The thrushes are a passerine bird family, Turdidae, with a world ...
. This bird nests in open, stony, sparsely vegetated regions, laying four to six eggs in a hole, under a stone or in a rock crevice. The pied wheatear primarily eats insects but will also take seeds.


Etymology

The genus name ''Oenanthe'' is derived from the
Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...
''oenos'' (οίνος) "wine" and ''anthos'' (ανθός) "flower". It refers to the northern wheatear's return to Greece in the spring just as the
grapevines ''Vitis'' (grapevine) is a genus of 81 accepted species of vining plants in the flowering plant family Vitaceae. The genus consists of species predominantly from the Northern Hemisphere. It is economically important as the source of grapes, bot ...
blossom. ''Pleschanka'' is the Russian name for the pied wheatear and refers to the white cap (''plesch'' is a bald spot on the head). "Wheatear" is not derived from "
wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...
" or any sense of "
ear In vertebrates, an ear is the organ that enables hearing and (in mammals) body balance using the vestibular system. In humans, the ear is described as having three parts: the outer ear, the middle ear and the inner ear. The outer ear co ...
", but is a 16th-century
linguistic corruption Language change is the process of alteration in the features of a single language, or of languages in general, over time. It is studied in several subfields of linguistics: historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, and evolutionary linguistics. ...
of "white" and "arse", referring to the prominent white rump found in most species.


Description

The crown, nape and neck of the adult male pied wheatear are pale brown, the feathers having pale tips and white bases. The mantle and scapulars are black with buff tips to the feathers. The back, rump and upper tail-coverts are creamy-white. The central pair of tail feathers are black with white bases but the rest are white with black tips, the outer pair having rather more black than the rest. There is a narrow buff-coloured line extending from the base of the beak to over the eye and the lores, ear coverts, chin, throat and upper breast are black. The rest of the breast is buff, the belly creamy-buff and the underwing coverts and axillaries are black tipped with white. The wing feathers are black with tips and edgings of creamy-buff. The bird moults in late summer and by the following year, the edges of the feathers are abraded and the crown and nape are white and the mantle, scapulars and wings black. The beak, legs and feet are black and the eyes dark brown. The length is about . The adult female is similar to the male but the mantle and scapulars are brown with buff tips rather than black, the tail feathers are brown and white and the wing feathers brown with buff tips. Again, abrasion wears of the tips of the feathers and the bird becomes more uniformly brown and white with creamy buff underparts. The female is slightly smaller than the male. The juvenile is similar to the female but the feathers of the brown upperparts have pale centres near the tips giving the bird a speckled appearance. The voice is a harsh ''zack zack''. The song is low-pitched and musical and is performed by the male in early summer and again in August. It consists of a variable, imitative series of notes, sometimes lark-like and sometimes whistling, pouring out in a continual stream. It is sung from a perch on a rock or other high place or in the air during flight.


Distribution and habitat

The pied wheatear is native to Southeast Europe and Western Asia. The breeding range extends from Romania and Bulgaria to Siberia, Altai and Mongolia and southwards to the Caucasus, Transcaspia, Turkestan, Iran and Afghanistan. It occurs at altitudes of up to in the Altai and up to in the
Tien Shan The Tian Shan, also known as the Tengri Tagh or Tengir-Too, meaning the "Mountains of God/Heaven", is a large system of mountain ranges in Central Asia. The highest peak is Jengish Chokusu at high and located in Kyrgyzstan. Its lowest point is ...
. It migrates to Northeast Africa, passing through Southwest Asia on the way. In the breeding season it is found in rough open country, steppes with scant vegetation, stony slopes and hilly country. In its winter quarters it is found in similar locations with rock, scree and on plains with thorny scrub. It sometimes visits grassy areas and gardens. It has occurred as a vagrant in Italy, Heligoland and Scotland.


Behaviour

The pied wheatear is rather shy but is conspicuous when spotted. It is not gregarious and single birds or pairs are found in rough, rocky countryside. It likes to perch on a bush or rock, alert and looking around and bobbing its tail up and down. When it spots a prey item it swoops down to the ground briefly to pick it up before returning to its perch. Its diet consists of small
invertebrate Invertebrates are animals that neither develop nor retain a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''spine'' or ''backbone''), which evolved from the notochord. It is a paraphyletic grouping including all animals excluding the chordata, chordate s ...
s such as
ant Ants are Eusociality, eusocial insects of the Family (biology), family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the Taxonomy (biology), order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from Vespoidea, vespoid wasp ancestors in the Cre ...
s,
grasshopper Grasshoppers are a group of insects belonging to the suborder Caelifera. They are amongst what are possibly the most ancient living groups of chewing herbivorous insects, dating back to the early Triassic around 250 million years ago. Grassh ...
s,
beetle Beetles are insects that form the Taxonomic rank, order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Holometabola. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 40 ...
s,
flies Flies are insects of the Order (biology), order Diptera, the name being derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwin ...
and
moth Moths are a group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not Butterfly, butterflies. They were previously classified as suborder Heterocera, but the group is Paraphyly, paraphyletic with respect to butterflies (s ...
s and their
larva A larva (; : larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into their next life stage. Animals with indirect development such as insects, some arachnids, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase ...
e,
spider Spiders (order (biology), order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight limbs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude spider silk, silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and ran ...
s and
mite Mites are small arachnids (eight-legged arthropods) of two large orders, the Acariformes and the Parasitiformes, which were historically grouped together in the subclass Acari. However, most recent genetic analyses do not recover the two as eac ...
s, and seeds are also eaten.


Breeding

The nest is made in holes in a riverbank, under stones and rocks and in crevices. It is made from dried grass stems and lined with slender roots and a few downy feathers. Four to six greenish-blue eggs with rust-coloured spots on the larger end are laid from early May onwards. They average and there is normally a single brood.


Status

The pied wheatear has a wide range across Eastern Europe and Western Asia and is common across that range. There are estimated to be somewhere between 96,000 and 420,000 individuals in Europe. As Europe forms 5 to 24% of the global range, the total population may be in the region of 400,000-8,400,000 individuals. The population is believed to be stable with no particular threats so the bird is rated as being of "
Least Concern A least-concern species is a species that has been evaluated and categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as not being a focus of wildlife conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wil ...
" by
Birdlife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding i ...
.


References


Further reading

*Ullman, Magnus (1994
Identification of Pied Wheatear and Eastern Black-eared Wheatear
''
Dutch Birding ''Dutch Birding'', originally subtitled ''Journal of the Dutch Birding Association'', and currently subtitled ''International journal on Palaearctic birds'', is an ornithological magazine published by the Amsterdam-based Dutch Birding Associatio ...
'' 16(5): 186–194 {{Taxonbar, from=Q763538 pied wheatear Birds of Eurasia Birds of Central Asia Birds of Mongolia Wintering birds of East Africa pied wheatear