Oenanthe oenanthe
Silhouette: Charles J. Sharp · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~20% in a week ~50%
The northern wheatear or wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe) is a small passerine bird in the Old World flycatcher family. It is the most widespread member of the wheatear genus Oenanthe in Europe and North and Central Asia. 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.
The northern wheatear belongs to a distinctive group of Old World flycatchers, known as chats, that were formerly thought to be thrushes. Genetic analysis showed that they were in fact a type of flycatcher (Muscicapidae), with the resemblance to thrushes being the result of convergent evolution. 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. The species is now placed in the genus Oenanthe that was introduced by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot in 1816. The generic name, Oenanthe, is also the... Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ulaanbaatar | 🇲🇳 Mongolia | |
| 2 | Novosibirsk | 🇷🇺 Russia | |
| 3 | Sincan | 🇹🇷 Turkey | |
| 4 | Helsinki | 🇫🇮 Finland | |
| 5 | Liverpool | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | |
| 6 | Berlin | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 7 | Tel Aviv | 🇮🇱 Israel | |
| 8 | Beirut | 🇱🇧 Lebanon | |
| 9 | Izmir | 🇹🇷 Turkey | |
| 10 | Kuwait City | 🇰🇼 Kuwait |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Northern Wheatear sighting in Cairngorms National Park on a given day, based on 304 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 68th most-seen of the 140 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 20%, and over a week to about 50%, if each day is a fresh chance.
April to August
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Northern Wheatear in Cairngorms National Park on a given day, against under 5% in September to March, the lowest months.
Between 10 am and 1 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Northern Wheatear sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
29th of 48
Of the 48 parks where we can rate Northern Wheatear sightings, Cairngorms National Park ranks 29th at about 10%. The best odds are in Mercantour National Park (France, about 50%), Vanoise National Park (France, about 50%) and Aigüestortes National Park (Spain, about 30%). All parks ranked.
Same family: Muscicapidae
The closest relatives of the Northern Wheatear that you can see in Cairngorms National Park (family Muscicapidae, Old World Flycatchers, Robins, and Chats) are European Robin (about 70%), Spotted Flycatcher (about 20%) and European Stonechat (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Northern Wheatear is recorded against all the birds logged in Cairngorms National Park (304 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
