Whinchat

    Saxicola rubetra

Castilian: Tarabilla norteña

Catalan: Bitxac rogenc

Gallego: Chasco norteño

Euskera: Pitxartxar nabarra

CLASIFICACIÓN:

Orden: Passeriformes

Family: Turdidae

Migratory status: Summer resident

CONSERVATION STATUS:

On the National List of Threatened Species, it appears in the “Of Special Interest” category. In the 2004 edition of the Red Book of Spanish Birds (Libro Rojo de las Aves de España) it is listed as “Not Evaluated”.

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THREATS

The primary threats are the alteration of its habitat due to the clearing of pastures and meadows, and the transformation of the wooded areas into scrubland due to the abandonment of traditional livestock raising and forest repopulation.

Length / size: 13 cm / 21-24 cm

Identification: Small bird that is similar to the common stonechat. Its throat is light, its forehead is white, and its tail is white with a wide black stripe at the end. The male is more eye-catching, with his throat, breast, and flanks being a reddish-orange colour, while his crown and cheeks are dark; the female is less eye-catching, with a less contrastive colour pattern.

Song: It is a fast series of short verses in which the bird mixes throat-clearing sounds, trills and imitations of other songs. Its call is a clicking "tek-tek" sound.

Diet: It primarily feeds on invertebrates, and, in autumn, it complements its diet with berries.

Reproduction: The breeding period begins in April. The nest is built on the ground, hidden in the vegetation, and is a bowl of grass and moss mixed with hair and fine material. The female is responsible for incubation but both parents feed the chicks.

HABITAT

During breeding season it occupies flat mountain pasturelands that are mixed with hedges, harvest fields and shrubby foothills. In migration it appears in all types of open shrubby areas, including farms and thin reed beds.

DISTRIBUTION

In Spain: When breeding, it is distributed throughout the northern third of the peninsula, with the most abundant populations in northern Castile and León (Burgos, León and Palencia) and in the eastern Pyrenees, and to a lesser extent in the Northern Plateau, Galicia, Cantabria, and Basque Country. In migration, it can be seen in the entire peninsula and in the Balearic Islands.

In Castile and León: The largest breeding populations are concentrated in Palencia, Burgos and León. During migration, it is distributed throughout all of the provinces.

Movements and migrations: It is a trans-Saharan migrant whose principal wintering areas are in tropical Africa and, in exceptional cases, in northern Africa and some places in the south of the peninsula. The prenuptial passage takes place between March and June, and the postnuptial between August and October.

POPULATION

In Spain: There is an estimated population of no more than 10000 breeding pairs.

In Castile and León: There is an estimated population of 6000 breeding pairs.