No. 340 on our checklistIsabelline Wheatear (Oenanthe isabellina)

On a spring morning in the steppe of Dobrogea, a pale sandy bird stands bolt upright on top of a mound, like a little sentry, and sings. The song is long and loud, full of whistles, rattles and the borrowed voices of other birds. Then the singer drops to the ground and disappears into a hole: the old burrow of a ground squirrel, where it has built its nest. This is the Isabelline Wheatear, the wheatear of the open steppe.

When to see it in the Danube Delta and Dobrogea

1. JanAbsent
2. FebAbsent
3. MarAbsent
4. AprModerate
5. MayModerate
6. JunModerate
7. JulModerate
8. AugModerate
9. SepModerate
10. OctAbsent
11. NovAbsent
12. DecAbsent

Status here

Summer breeder.

IUCN Red List

Least Concern

Our checklist

No. 340 of 385 · see the full checklist

How to recognise it

It is the palest and plainest of our wheatears: sandy buff above, creamy below, with a pale stripe over the eye and a dark line in front of it. The wings are sandy brown, with one small but useful mark, a black spot at the bend of the wing. The tail, seen when the bird flies or flicks it, is white at the base with a broad black band at the end, wider than in the other wheatears. Male and female look almost the same.

Compared with a female Northern Wheatear, it looks bigger headed, longer legged and more upright, standing tall like a little thrush. It bobs, flicks its tail and runs fast over the ground between short stops.

Feeding and nesting

It feeds on the ground, on beetles, grasshoppers, ants, caterpillars and other insects and spiders, which it catches with short runs and quick jabs, or by dropping from a low perch.

It does not dig its own nest hole. It nests in old burrows of ground squirrels, which it finds in short grazed grassland, and sometimes in other holes in the ground or among stones. The nest is built inside the burrow, out of sight. The female lays usually four to six pale blue eggs. In spring the male sings from mounds and stones, and also in a song flight, rising into the air and gliding down.

Where to see it in Dobrogea

Isabelline Wheatears arrive at the end of March and in April and leave in August and September. They breed all over the steppe areas of Dobrogea, wherever the grass is short and there are ground squirrels, from the grazed hills in the north to the dry plateaus in the south. In the Danube Delta itself they are seen only on passage. Our checklist marks it moderate from April to September.

You see it on the Dobrogea days of our birding tour of the Danube Delta and Dobrogea, and on our private birdwatching tours in the Danube Delta and Dobrogea.

Interesting facts

• A tenant of the ground squirrel. Its nest is usually in an old ground squirrel burrow, so the bird depends on a small mammal that digs the homes it cannot dig itself.
• A mimic. Its song is one of the richest among wheatears, full of phrases copied from other birds of the steppe.
• The colour of its name. Isabelline is an old name for a pale greyish yellow or sandy cream colour, exactly the colour of this bird.
• Early to arrive. It is one of the first summer birds to return to the steppe of Dobrogea, from the end of March.

Status and threats

The Isabelline Wheatear breeds from south east Europe and Turkey across Central Asia to Mongolia and China, and winters in the Sahel, East Africa, Arabia and north west India. It is listed as Least Concern by the IUCN. In Europe it is found mainly in Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey and in Dobrogea, at the western edge of its range.

For this bird the greatest danger is the loss of the steppe itself. When old grassland is ploughed, or when grazing stops and the grass grows tall, the ground squirrels disappear, and with them the burrows the wheatear needs for its nest. Pesticides on the surrounding fields take away the insects it feeds on.