Whinchat

The whinchat is a short-tailed bird, moving on the ground with small, rapid hops and frequently bobbing and flicking its wings and tail. It is similar in size to its relative the European robin (Erithacus rubecula), being 12 to 14 cm (4.7 to 5.5 in) long and weighing 13 to 26 g (0.46 to 0.92 oz). 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 a 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 are similar to females, except that adult males retain the white wing patches all year round. 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. …

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. Available stopover sites are important for the successful migration of whinchat between Africa and Europe, where they face the barriers of the Sahara and Mediterranean Sea. 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. During the breeding season in the UK, at the landscape-scale, whinchats favour habitats with high plant species richness and steeper slopes. …

The whinchat is a largely solitary bird though it may form small family groups in autumn. It favours rough low vegetation habitats such as open rough pasture or similar minimally cultivated grassland with scattered small shrubs such as hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna), and bracken (Pteridium aquilinum) or heather (Calluna vulgaris) stands on rock-strewn ground. It also commonly inhabits new and clear-felled conifer plantations until the new tree crop is about five to six years old and a metre or two tall. It always needs at least a few perching points (shrubs, tall weeds, or fence posts) to scan from for food and for use as song posts. Breeding takes place in late April and May. The nest is built solely by the female, and is made of dried grasses and moss, and lined with hairs and fine bents. It is built on the ground, hidden in dense low vegetation, often at the foot of a bush. The female lays and incubates a clutch of four to seven eggs which hatch after eleven to fourteen days. Both parents bring food to the young which leave the nest ten to fourteen days later, while still too young to fly. The chicks fledge at seventeen to nineteen days after hatching and remain largely dependent on the parents for a further two weeks. …