whinchat

Whinchat
Adult male in breeding plumage
Conservation status
Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Order: Passeriformes Family: Muscicapidae Genus: Saxicola Species: S. rubetra
Binomial name
Saxicola rubetra (Linnaeus, 1758)

The Whinchat, Saxicola rubetra, is a small European passerine bird. Formerly considered a member of the thrush family (Turdidae), it is now more generally considered to be an Old World flycatcher (Muscicapidae). It, and similar thrush-like Muscicapidae species, are often called chats.

Its scientific name means "reddish rock-dweller", in reference to its habitat and overall coloration. Saxicola derives from Latin saxum ("rock") + incola ("inhabitant", "one who dwells in a certain place"). rubetra is Latin for "colored reddish" or "reddish-hued".

Description and systematics

Adult female

The Whinchat is similar in size to its relative the European Robin (Erithacus rubecula). Both sexes have brownish upperparts, a yellowish rump, a buff throat and breast, a whitish belly, a blackish tail with white bases to the outher rectrices. The male in breeding plumage has blackish head sides almost encircled by a strong white supercilium and malar stripe and white wing patches.

The female is duller overall, in particular having pale brown head sides and a buff supercilium, malar stripe and wing patches. Males in nonbreeding plumage and immatures are similar.

The male has a whistling, crackly but soft song, consisting mainly of the tell-tale phrase fü-chack-chack. Its call is the chack noise typical for chats, or a soft whistle. On the wintering grounds, it often calls but rarely sings.^[1].

This species represents a fairly basal divergence of the genus Saxicola. It retains the plesiomorphic supercilium found in many Muscicapidae but lost – probably autapomorphically – in the more advanced Saxicola species such as the European Stonechat (S. rubicola) or African Stonechat (S. torquatus).^[2]

Ecology

S. rubetra is a migratory insectivorous species breeding in open rough pasture or similar uncultivated grass- or shrubland in Europe east to the Ural Mountains approximately^[3]. Bracken (Pteridium) stands on rock-strewn ground are also a favorite habitat of this species. It nests in tussocks. The birds like to perch on elevated spots such as telephone wires, from where they make sallies to catch flying insects^[1].

They winter in northern^{[verification needed]} sub-Saharan Africa; they arrive in Western Africa at the start of the dry season. Molt of the remiges does not usually take place in winter quarters, but young birds may replace their first set of remiges before their first migration back to the breeding grounds.^[1]

Not uncommon across its wide range, the Whinchat is classified as a Species of Least Concern by the IUCN.^[3]

Footnotes

References

• BirdLife International (BLI) (2008). Saxicola rubetra. 2008 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2008. Retrieved on 10 May 2009.
• Traylor, Melvin A. & Parelius, Daniel (1967): A Collection of Birds from the Ivory Coast. Fieldiana Zool. 51(7): 91-117. Fulltext at the Internet Archive
• Wink, M.; Sauer-Gürth, H. & Gwinner, E. (2002): Evolutionary relationships of stonechats and related species inferred from mitochondrial-DNA sequences and genomic fingerprinting. British Birds 95: 349-355. PDF fulltext

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Saxicola rubetra

• Ageing and sexing (PDF) by Javier Blasco-Zumeta
• Avibase