Oenanthe oenanthe
Silhouette: Charles J. Sharp · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~40% in a week ~60%
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 Sincan on a given day, based on 9 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 45th most-seen of the 64 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 40%, and over a week to about 60%, if each day is a fresh chance.
September
In that month about 30% of wildlife watchers report a Northern Wheatear in Sincan on a given day, against about 10% in November to June, the lowest months. That is one of Sincan's driest months, with about 20 mm of rain against 50 mm in May. July and August have too few records to rate.
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.
3rd of 37
Of the 37 cities where we can rate Northern Wheatear sightings, Sincan ranks 3rd at about 10%. The best odds are in Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia, about 30%) and Novosibirsk (Russia, about 10%).
Same family: Muscicapidae
The closest relatives of the Northern Wheatear that you can see in Sincan (family Muscicapidae, Old World Flycatchers, Robins, and Chats) are European Robin (about 30%), Spotted Flycatcher (about 20%) and European Stonechat (about 20%), 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 Sincan (9 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.
