More Wheatears

Had my first male Wheatears today of the Spring - at least five with three females at the Farmlands. We were doing a stake out for the White-tailed Eagle that had been seen in North London this morning but the best we could pull out of the sky was a few Buzzard and a Red Kite.

Wheatears are such cracking birds so in celebration of this smart family here is a photo collection of the Wheatears that have featured on this blog over the years.

According to my IOC World List I have seen 20 different species of Wheatear. In Shirihai and Svensson still need a few Western Palearctic ones including Cyprus Wheatear, Persian Wheatear, Basalt Wheatear and in the Greater WP there's Hume's Wheatear, Arabian Wheatear, Blyth's Wheatear and Red-breasted Wheatear.

Spring male Wheatears from today 

 Male Pied Wheatear, Bulgaria 

 Male Maghreb Wheatear, Morocco 

 Female Maghreb Wheatear, Morocco 

 Adult Mourning Wheatear, Israel . Unlike Maghreb Wheatear (formely lumped with Mourning Wheatear), the sexes do not differ significantly in plumage.  

Male Seebohm's Wheatear, Morocco 

 White-crowned Black Wheatear, Israel 

 Female Hooded Wheatear, Israel 

 Isabelline Wheatear, Bulgaria 

 Female Black-eared Wheatear, Western Sahara 

 'Greenland Wheatear,' The Azores 

 Blackstart, Jordan - according to IOC this is a member of the Wheatear family 

 Female Desert Wheatear, Morocco 

 Kurdish (Red-tailed) Wheatear, Turkey

Red-rumped Wheatear, Morocco  

Finsch's Wheatear, Azerbaijan 

 Autumn Northern Wheatears, two adults and two first-winters

and another shot of a Spring Northern Wheatear- the original and the best