Are wheatears rare? (1 Viewer)

[Owene]

I just converted my western palearctic bubo list to a world list and had a look at the blockers. How come wheatear is so high? I noticed that the top ioc western palearctic list on there was also missing wheatear.

It can’t be that most lists are not European. My entire first page of most seen by other listers birds are all European. Is there some taxonomy thing I’m unaware of.

 

[JTweedie]

Least Concern globally: http://datazone.birdlife.org/species/factsheet/northern-wheatear-oenanthe-oenanthe

 

[Owene]

Thanks. I couldn’t really understand why a bubo list that seems primarily Western European had so few people see them.

 

[JTweedie]

Perhaps people aren't visiting suitable habitats in enough numbers to record them? Maybe also with pandemic lockdowns, not enough people were around during height of migration to see them?

There's demographic information that's more focused on Britain that might help, although it says there's not enough evidence to say for sure what possible reasons there might be for any change: Species | BTO - British Trust for Ornithology