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  Profile

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  In flight

Songbirds

Black Redstart

Phoenicurus ochruros

• rare
• 55 km/h
• Least Concern

Originally a cliff bird, now nests on industrial buildings and railway yards. Delivers from the wrong side of the tracks.

Population

Approximately 32-58 million mature individuals globally (2012 BirdLife estimate)

Habitat

Sparsely vegetated rocky terrain — stony slopes, crags, mountain cliffs — and, since around 1900, urban and industrial environments (buildings, ruins, quarries, railway yards) that mimic cliff-like structures

Fun fact

Black Redstarts historically nested on rocky mountain cliffs but adapted so successfully to bombed-out buildings and industrial ruins in 20th-century European cities that they became a signature colonist of WWII-devastated urban landscapes.

Range

Widespread breeder across Eurasia and North Africa, from the British Isles and Morocco east to central China and Japan; northern/high-altitude populations migrate south to winter around the Mediterranean, Middle East, and South Asia

Diet

Primarily insectivorous — grasshoppers, flies, beetles, ants, bees, wasps, spiders, and earthworms — supplemented seasonally with berries, fruit, and seeds

Size

0.145 m

Wingspan

0.245 m

Lifespan

8 years