
Photo: Julien Renoult · CC BY 4.0
Oenanthe isabellina
Diet
Insects
Habitat
Steppe and open countryside
Size
15–16.5cm
The isabelline wheatear is a pale chat, 15–16.5cm long, with sandy-brown upperparts with a parchment-coloured tinge, the isabelline shade that gives it its name, a white rump, a creamy eyebrow and buff to creamy underparts. The tail is brownish-black with a large white base. It resembles a female northern wheatear but is larger, more upright and more tawny, with more black in the tail and white rather than grey-mottled underwing coverts. The sexes look alike (Wikipedia, general species account).
It is a very rare vagrant to western Europe (Wikipedia, general species account).