Oenanthe oenanthe
Silhouette: Charles J. Sharp · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~40% in a week ~70%
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 |
Possible
About 20% of wildlife watchers report a Northern Wheatear sighting in Samburu National Reserve on a given day, based on 165 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 118th most-seen of the 341 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 40%, and over a week to about 70%, if each day is a fresh chance.
February, October and December
In those months about 30% of wildlife watchers report a Northern Wheatear in Samburu National Reserve on a given day, against under 5% in April to August, 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.
15th of 48
Of the 48 parks where we can rate Northern Wheatear sightings, Samburu National Reserve ranks 15th at about 20%. 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 genus: Oenanthe
The closest relatives of the Northern Wheatear that you can see in Samburu National Reserve (genus Oenanthe, Wheatears and Allies) are Pied Wheatear (about 20%) and Isabelline Wheatear (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 Samburu National Reserve (165 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.
