Wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe)
Key Details
| Taxonomic Groups: | Vertebrate > bird > Bird |
| Red List Status: | Endangered (Breeding) [EN(br)] |
| D5 Status: | Included in the baseline Red List Index for England (Wilkins, Wilson & Brown, 2022) |
| Section 41 Status: | (not listed) |
| Taxa Included Synonym: | (none) |
| UKSI Recommended Name: | Oenanthe oenanthe |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | (Linnaeus, 1758) |
| UKSI Recommended Qualifier: | (none specified) |
| Red List Citation: | Stanbury et al., 2021 |
| Notes on taxonomy/listing: | (none) |
Criteria
| Question 1: | Does species need conservation or recovery in England? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Range contraction in England. Moderate population decline, especially in the lowlands. |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Research needed to determine reasons for loss as a breeding bird from lowland England. |
| Question 3: | At a landscape scale, would the species benefit from untargeted habitat management to increase habitat mosaics, structural diversity, or particular successional stages? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Short grazed turf within breeding habitat to enable access to invertebrate prey. |
Species Assessment
| Current step on the Species Recovery Curve (SRC): | 4. Autecology and pressures understood |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Medium-high |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Structured - insufficient |
| Species Comments: | Greater understanding required of arthropod abundance and availability in shorter grazed swards and low dwarf shrub heath - how short is too short? |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: Conduct site based trial management project to investigate the effects of habitat manipulation/grazing on arthropod abundance to benefit Wheatear populations.
Action targets: 6. Recovery solutions trialled
Action type: Scientific research
Duration: 3-5 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 5 sites
High priority sites:
Comments:
Key Action 2
Proposed Action: Ensure an effective marking programme is in place to understand population dynamics and ecology for this species.
Action targets: 4. Autecology and pressures understood
Action type: Scientific research
Duration: 3-5 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 10 sites
High priority sites:
Comments:
Acknowledgment:
Data used on this website are adapted from Threatened species recovery actions 2025 baseline (JP065): Technical report and spreadsheet user guide (Natural England, 2025). Available here.