Variable Wheatear
Oenanthe picata (Blyth, 1847)
Muscicapidae — Chats, Old World Flycatchers
Variable Wheatear, Oenanthe picata, is a passerine of the Muscicapidae family that breeds from Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan to southern Iran and southern Pakistan, and spends the non-breeding season in west-central India and Oman. It is a bird of hot deserts and other dry open country, including barren rocky ground, sand dunes with scrub, cultivation, ravines, village edges and nomadic camps. The species is polymorphic, with three distinct plumage forms, and the different female types do not match the male forms exactly.
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Muscicapidae — Chats, Old World Flycatchers
- Breeding range
- Palearctic: Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan to s Iran and s Pakistan
- Nonbreeding range
- to wc India and Oman
