European Stonechat, Tarabilla común

Juvenile. Small passerine bird that was formerly classed as a subspecies of the Common Stonechat.

The Stonechat is 11.5–13 cm long, slightly smaller than the European Robin. Both sexes have distinctively short wings. The summer male has black upperparts, a black head, an orange throat and breast, and a white belly and vent. It also has a white half-collar on the sides of its neck, a small white scapular patch on the wings, and a very small white patch on the rump often streaked with black. The female has brown upperparts and head, and no white neck patches, rump or belly, these areas being streaked dark brown on paler brown, the only white being the scapular patch on the wings and even this often being buffy-white.

The male's song is high and twittering. Both sexes have a clicking call like stones knocking together.

In the past, the European Stonechat was generally considered conspecific with the Siberian Stonechat and African Stonechat, lumped together as Common Stonechat S. torquatus. A new review adding mtDNA cytochrome b sequence and nuclear DNA microsatellite fingerprinting evidence strongly supports their separation into distinct species.