Oenanthe oenanthe
Silhouette: Charles J. Sharp · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~20%
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 |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Northern Wheatear sighting in Ramallah on a given day, based on 19 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 78th most-seen of the 118 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 20%, if each day is a fresh chance.
September
In that month about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Northern Wheatear in Ramallah on a given day, against under 5% in November to August, the lowest months. That is one of Ramallah's driest months, with almost no rain against 90 mm in January.
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.
11th of 37
Of the 37 cities where we can rate Northern Wheatear sightings, Ramallah ranks 11th at under 5%. The best odds are in Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia, about 30%), Novosibirsk (Russia, about 10%) and Sincan (Turkey, about 10%).
Same genus: Oenanthe
The closest relatives of the Northern Wheatear that you can see in Ramallah (genus Oenanthe, Wheatears and Allies) are Blackstart (about 10%) and Western Black-eared Wheatear (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 Ramallah (19 verified sightings), 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.
