Northern wheatear

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Northern wheatear
Steinschmaetzer Northern wheatear male.jpg
Male in breeding-plumage
Northern wheatear Oenanthe oenanthe.jpg
Female
Song of male, Devon, England
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Muscicapidae
Genus: Oenanthe
Species:
O. oenanthe
Binomial name
Oenanthe oenanthe
Oenanthe oenanthe map.svg
Synonyms

Motacilla OenantheLinnaeus, 1758

Northern wheatear juvenile Stenskvatta - Oenanthe oenanthe.jpg
Northern wheatear juvenile

The northern wheatear or wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe) is a small passerine bird that was formerly classed as a member of the thrush family Turdidae, but is now more generally considered to be an Old World flycatcher, Muscicapidae. It is the most widespread member of the wheatear genus Oenanthe in Europe and North and Central Asia.

Contents

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. It nests in rock crevices and rabbit burrows. All birds spend most of their winter in Africa.

Taxonomy and systematics

The northern wheatear was first formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the 10th edition of his Systema Naturae as Motacilla oenanthe. [2] The species is now placed in the genus Oenanthe that was introduced by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot in 1816. [3] [4] The generic name, Oenanthe, is also the name of a plant genus, the water dropworts, and is derived from the Greek ainos "wine" and anthos "flower", from the wine-like scent of the flowers. [5] In the case of the wheatear, it refers to the birds' return to Greece in the spring at the time that the grapevines blossom. [6]

Its English name has nothing to do with wheat or with ear, but is an altered (perhaps bowdlerised) form of white-arse, which refers to its prominent white rump. [7]

The four generally accepted subspecies of the Northern Wheatear with their breeding range are as follows: [8]

O.o. seebohmi is regarded as a distinct species by some authorities such as the International Ornithological Committee, Seebohm’s or the Atlas wheatear. [9]

Description

Eggs, Collection Museum Wiesbaden Oenanthe oenanthe MWNH 1870.JPG
Eggs, Collection Museum Wiesbaden

The northern wheatear is larger than the European robin at 14.5–16 cm (5.7–6.3 in) in length. The northern wheatear also has a wingspan of 26– 32 cm and weighs 17-30 g. [10]

Both sexes have a white rump and tail, with a black inverted T-pattern at the end of the tail.

The plumage of the summer male has grey upperparts, buff throat and black wings and face mask. In autumn it resembles the female apart from the black wings. The female is pale brown above and buff below with darker brown wings. The male has a whistling, crackly song. Its call is a typical chat chack noise, and the flight call is the same.

Behaviour and ecology

Migration

The northern wheatear makes one of the longest journeys of any small bird, crossing ocean, ice, and desert. [11] It migrates from Sub-Saharan Africa in spring over a vast area of the Northern Hemisphere that includes northern and central Asia, Europe, Greenland, Alaska, and parts of Canada. [11] In autumn all return to Africa, where their ancestors had wintered. [11] Arguably, some of the birds that breed in north Asia could take a shorter route and winter in south Asia; however, their inherited inclination to migrate takes them back to Africa, [11] completing one of the longest migrations for its body size in the animal kingdom [12]

Birds of the large, bright Greenland race, leucorhoa, make one of the longest transoceanic crossings of any passerine. In spring most migrate along a route (commonly used by waders and waterfowl) from Africa via continental Europe, the British Isles, and Iceland to Greenland. However, autumn sightings from ships suggest that some birds cross the North Atlantic directly from Canada and Greenland to southwest Europe, a distance of up to 2,500 kilometres (1,600 mi). [13] Birds breeding in eastern Canada are thought to fly from Baffin Island and Newfoundland via Greenland, Ireland, and Portugal to the Azores, crossing 3,500 kilometres (2,200 mi) of the North Atlantic) before flying onwards to Africa. [14] Other populations from western Canada and Alaska migrate by flying over much of Eurasia to Africa. [11]

Miniature tracking devices have recently shown that the northern wheatear has one of the longest migratory flights known - 30,000 km (18,640 miles), from sub-Saharan Africa to their Arctic breeding grounds. [15]

"The Alaskan birds travelled almost 15,000km (9,000 miles) each way - crossing Siberia and the Arabian Desert, and travelling, on average, 290km per day. "This is the longest recorded migration for a songbird as far as we know," said Dr Schmaljohann. [15]

Breeding

Northern wheatears first breed when they are one year old. [16] The nest is built entirely by the female while the male perches nearby, sings and sometimes performs song-flights. [17] The nest is placed in a cavity such as a rabbit burrow, a crevice among rocks or in a man-made object such as a wall or pipe. The nest typically has a foundation of untidy plant material. The nest cup is constructed of finer grasses, leaves, moss and lichen. The female lays eggs at daily intervals. The clutch is 4-7 smooth but not glossy eggs that are around 21.0 mm × 15.8 mm (0.83 in × 0.62 in) in size with an average weight of 2.83 g (0.100 oz). The eggs are very pale blue in colour and sometimes have a few red-brown marks at the larger end. They are incubated almost entirely by the female beginning after the penultimate or final egg has been laid. The eggs hatch after approximately 13 days. The chicks are fed by both parents and are brooded by the female for the first five or six days. They fledge after 15 days and become independent of their parents when they are between 28 and 32 days old. Normally only a single brood is raised each year but when a clutch of eggs is lost, the female will lay a second clutch. [18]

Status and conservation

The northern wheatear has an extensive range, estimated at 2.3 million square kilometres (0.87 million square miles), and a large population estimated at 2.9 million individuals in the Old World and the Americas combined. The species is not believed to approach the thresholds for the population decline criterion of the IUCN Red List (i.e., declining more than 30% in ten years or three generations), and is therefore evaluated as least concern. [1]

Relationship with humans

In the 18th and 19th centuries wheatears were considered a delicacy in England, called "the English ortolan" and Sussex shepherds supplemented their income by selling the birds they trapped. [19] [20] [21]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wheatear</span> Genus of birds

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 the northern wheatear has established a foothold in eastern Canada and Greenland and in western Canada and Alaska.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Isabelline wheatear</span> Species of bird

The isabelline wheatear is a small passerine bird that was formerly classed as a member of the thrush family Turdidae, but is now more generally considered to be an Old World flycatcher in the family Muscicapidae. It is a migratory insectivorous bird. Its habitat is steppe and open countryside and it breeds in southern Russia and Central Asia to northern Pakistan, wintering in Africa and northwestern India. It is a very rare vagrant to western Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Desert wheatear</span> Species of bird

The desert wheatear is a wheatear, a small passerine bird that was formerly classed as a member of the thrush family Turdidae, but is now more generally considered to be an Old World flycatcher (Muscicapidae). It is a migratory insectivorous species, 14.5 to 15 cm in length. Both western and eastern forms of the desert wheatear are rare vagrants to western Europe. The western desert wheatear breeds in the Sahara and the northern Arabian peninsula. The eastern race is found in the semi-deserts of Central Asia and in winter in Pakistan and northeast Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western black-eared wheatear</span> Species of bird

The western black-eared wheatear is a wheatear, a small migratory passerine bird that was formerly classed as a member of the thrush family Turdidae, but is now considered to be an Old World flycatcher. It was formerly considered conspecific with the eastern black-eared wheatear.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pied wheatear</span> Species of bird

The pied wheatear is a wheatear, a small insectivorous passerine bird that was formerly classed as a member of the thrush family Turdidae, but is now more generally considered to be an Old World flycatcher. This migratory central Asiatic wheatear occurs from the extreme southeast of Europe to China, and has been found wintering in India and northeastern Africa. It is a very rare vagrant to western Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cyprus wheatear</span> Species of bird

The Cyprus wheatear or Cyprus pied wheatear is a small, 14–15 cm long passerine bird that was formerly classed as a member of the thrush family Turdidae, but is now more generally considered to be an Old World flycatcher, Muscicapidae. It was formerly treated as a subspecies (race) of pied wheatear but Sluys and van den Berg (1982) argued that the form deserved full species status, on the basis of differences in biometrics and especially song, and the lack of sexual plumage dimorphism in cypriaca.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Woodchat shrike</span> Species of bird

The woodchat shrike is a member of the shrike family Laniidae. It can be identified by its red-brown crown and nape. It is mainly insectivorous and favours open wooded areas with scattered trees such as orchards, particularly when there is bare or sandy ground. The woodchat shrike breeds in southern Europe, the Middle East and northwest Africa, and winters in tropical Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eurasian golden oriole</span> Species of bird

The Eurasian golden oriole, also called the common golden oriole, is the only member of the Old World oriole family of passerine birds breeding in Northern Hemisphere temperate regions. It is a summer migrant in Europe and Palearctic and spends the winter season in central and southern Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leach's storm petrel</span> Species of bird

Leach's storm petrel or Leach's petrel is a small seabird of the tubenose order. It is named after the British zoologist William Elford Leach. The scientific name is derived from Ancient Greek. Hydrobates is from hydōr "water", and batēs "walker", and leucorhous is from leukos, "white" and orrhos, "rump". It was formerly defined in the genus Oceanodroma before that genus was synonymized with Hydrobates.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arctic tern</span> Bird that breeds in the Arctic and sub-Arctic and migrates to the Antarctic

The Arctic tern is a tern in the family Laridae. This bird has a circumpolar breeding distribution covering the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions of Europe, Asia, and North America. The species is strongly migratory, seeing two summers each year as it migrates along a convoluted route from its northern breeding grounds to the Antarctic coast for the southern summer and back again about six months later. Recent studies have shown average annual round-trip lengths of about 70,900 km (44,100 mi) for birds nesting in Iceland and Greenland and about 48,700 km (30,300 mi) for birds nesting in the Netherlands. These are by far the longest migrations known in the animal kingdom. The Arctic tern nests once every one to three years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dunlin</span> Species of bird

The dunlin is a small wader, formerly sometimes separated with the other "stints" in the genus Erolia. The English name is a dialect form of "dunling", first recorded in 1531–1532. It derives from dun, "dull brown", with the suffix -ling, meaning a person or thing with the given quality.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brambling</span> Species of bird

The brambling is a small passerine bird in the finch family Fringillidae. It has also been called the cock o' the north and the mountain finch. It is widespread and migratory, often seen in very large flocks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black wheatear</span> Species of bird

The black wheatear is a wheatear, a small passerine bird in the Old World flycatcher family Muscicapidae. It is found in southern Spain and western North Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Olive-sided flycatcher</span> Species of bird

The olive-sided flycatcher is a small to medium sized passerine bird in the family Tyrannidae, the Tyrant flycatcher family. It is a migratory species that travels from South to North America to breed during the summer. It is a very agile flyer and mainly consumes flying insects on flight. Since 2016, this species has been assessed as being near-threatened globally (IUCN) and threatened in Canada (SRA) due to its declining populations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Capped wheatear</span> Species of bird

The capped wheatear is a small insectivorous passerine bird that is widely distributed over southern Africa. It was formerly classed as a member of the thrush family Turdidae, but is now placed in the Old World flycatcher family, Muscicapidae.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kurdish wheatear</span> Species of bird

The Kurdish wheatear, also known as the Kurdistan wheatear, the chestnut-rumped wheatear or the red-rumped wheatear, is a species of bird in the family Muscicapidae. The red-tailed wheatear was formerly considered a subspecies of this bird but is now often regarded as a separate species. The two may intergrade in Iran but it is also possible that the rather differently coloured cummingi is in fact a one-year-old O. xanthoprymna with intermediate plumage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Red-tailed wheatear</span> Species of bird

The red-tailed wheatear, also known as the rusty-tailed wheatear, Persian wheatear or Afghan wheatear, is a small passerine bird breeding in mountainous areas of south-west and central Asia. It belongs to the wheatear genus Oenanthe which was formerly placed in the thrush family Turdidae but is now in the Old World flycatcher family Muscicapidae. The red-tailed wheatear used to be considered a subspecies of the Kurdish wheatear but is now often regarded as a separate species.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abyssinian wheatear</span> Species of bird

The Abyssinian wheatear, or Abyssinian black wheatear, is a species of bird in the family Muscicapidae, the Old World flycatchers and chats. It is found from Ethiopia to southern Kenya and north-eastern Tanzania.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eastern black-eared wheatear</span> Species of bird

The eastern black-eared wheatear is a wheatear, a small migratory passerine bird that was formerly classed as a member of the thrush family Turdidae, but is now considered to be an Old World flycatcher. It was formerly considered conspecific with the western black-eared wheatear.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Atlas wheatear</span> Subspecies of bird

The Atlas wheatear, also known as the black-throated wheatear or Seebohm's wheatear, is a small passerine bird which breeds in the Maghreb region of North Africa and winters in the western Sahel. It was formerly considered a subspecies of the northern wheatear as O. o. seebohmi, but was reclassified as a distinct species by the IOC in 2021.

References

  1. 1 2 BirdLife International (2018). "Oenanthe oenanthe". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species . 2018: e.T103773898A132192232. doi: 10.2305/IUCN.UK.2018-2.RLTS.T103773898A132192232.en . Retrieved 19 November 2021.
  2. ↑ Linnaeus, Carl (1758). Systema Naturæ per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis, Volume 1 (in Latin). Vol. 1 (10th ed.). Holmiae (Stockholm): Laurentii Salvii. p. 186. M. dorso cano, fronte alba, oculorum fascia nigra
  3. ↑ Mayr, Ernst; Paynter, Raymond A. Jr, eds. (1960). Check-list of Birds of the World. Vol. 10. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Museum of Comparative Zoology. p. 121.
  4. ↑ Vieillot, Louis Pierre (1883) [1816]. Saunders, Howard (ed.). Vieillot's Analyse d'une nouvelle ornithologie élémentaire (in French). London. p. 43.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  5. ↑ "Dropwort, Hemlock Water". A Modern herbal. Botanical.com. Retrieved 2008-02-05.
  6. ↑ "Northern Wheatear". eNature. Retrieved 2008-02-05.
  7. ↑ "Wheatear" . Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press.(Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
  8. ↑ Gill, Frank; Donsker, David, eds. (2016). "Chats, Old World flycatchers". World Bird List Version 6.2. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 20 May 2016.
  9. ↑ "Species Updates". International Ornithological Committee. Retrieved 29 April 2021.
  10. ↑ Oiseaux.net. "Traquet motteux - Oenanthe oenanthe - Northern Wheatear". www.oiseaux.net. Retrieved 2020-09-29.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 Elphick, Jonathan, ed. (1995). Atlas of Bird Migration . New York: Random House. ISBN   0-679-43827-0.
  12. ↑ "Featherweight songbird is a long-distance champ". phys.org. Retrieved 2020-06-05.
  13. ↑ Snow, David (1953). "The migration of the Greenland Wheatear". Ibis. 95 (2): 376–378. doi:10.1111/j.1474-919X.1953.tb00698.x.
  14. ↑ Bairlein, F.; Norris, D.R.; Nagel, R.; Bulte, M.; Voigt, C.C.; Fox, J.W.; Hussell, D.J.T.; Schmaljohann, H. (2012). "Cross-hemisphere migration of a 25 g songbird". Biology Letters. 8 (4): 505–7. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2011.1223 . PMC   3391447 . PMID   22337504.
  15. 1 2 "Tiny songbird northern wheatear traverses the world" by Victoria Gill. BBC Nature 15 February 2012.
  16. ↑ Cramp 1988, p. 788.
  17. ↑ Cramp 1988, p. 784.
  18. ↑ Cramp 1988, pp. 787–788.
  19. ↑ Cocker, Mark; Mabey, Richard (2005). Birds Britannica. London: Chatto and Windus. p. 348. ISBN   978-0-7011-6907-7.
  20. ↑ Defoe, Daniel (1724). A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain. Vol. 1. London: G. Strahan. Letter 2, p. 57.
  21. ↑ Hudson, William Henry (1900). Nature in Downland (2nd ed.). London: Longmans, Green. pp. 126–141.

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