The Black Redstart (Phoenicurus ochruros) is a small passerine bird known for its adaptability. It often lives near humans, making it a familiar sight in urban and industrial landscapes. Its widespread presence highlights its unique characteristics.
Distinctive Features
The Black Redstart is a robin-sized bird, typically measuring between 13 to 14.5 centimeters in length and weighing 12 to 20 grams. Adult males display a deep grey to black on their head, throat, and upper body, contrasted by a vibrant rusty-red tail and lower belly. A prominent white patch is visible on their wings, particularly during flight.
Female Black Redstarts exhibit a more subdued appearance, with grey-brown upperparts and a paler underside. Females retain the characteristic rusty-red tail. Juvenile birds are uniformly grey-brown, closely resembling adult females, but their distinct red tail is clearly visible. These birds frequently adopt an upright stance, often quivering their tail, especially after landing.
Natural Habitat and Range
Black Redstarts originally inhabited rocky landscapes, cliffs, and mountainous regions, favoring stony ground with sparse vegetation. Over time, they have shown adaptability, expanding their range into human-modified environments. They are commonly found in urban areas, industrial sites, and even places damaged by wartime bombing, utilizing structures like wall niches, holes in facades, roofs, and beams that mimic their natural rocky outcrops.
This species is a widespread breeder across southern and central Europe, Asia, and northwest Africa, extending from Great Britain and Ireland eastward to central China. While resident in the milder parts of their distribution, many northeastern populations migrate. These birds move to southern and western Europe, Asia, and North Africa for the winter months. Some mountain-dwelling populations also undertake altitudinal movements, descending to lower elevations during colder periods.
Behavior and Diet
Black Redstarts are known for their distinctive tail-wagging and bobbing motions, which increase in frequency when sensing a threat or during courtship displays. They are typically solitary outside of the breeding season. These birds prefer to perch on elevated structures, such as rooftops or high branches, from which they observe their surroundings. They sometimes exhibit hovering behavior while hunting for prey.
The male’s song is often described as a scratchy warble that incorporates high-pitched notes and can sound like crumpling paper. Their alarm calls are sharp “tic-tic-tic” or “Si” and “Fid” sounds. Black Redstarts are frequently among the first birds to sing just before dawn. They are primarily insectivorous, skillfully catching flying insects mid-air or gleaning prey from surfaces such as walls and the ground. Their diet includes a variety of invertebrates like grasshoppers, flies, beetles, moths, ants, bees, wasps, spiders, and worms. During colder months or in urban environments, they supplement their diet with small berries and seeds.
Breeding and Life Cycle
Black Redstarts typically form monogamous pairs for the breeding season, which generally spans from April to August. During this period, males sing persistently from prominent perches to attract females. Nesting sites are often chosen in crevices or holes found in buildings, cliffs, or walls, mimicking their natural preferences for rock formations. The female alone undertakes the task of selecting the nesting site and constructing the nest.
The nest is cup-shaped, built from materials such as grass, moss, plant stems, and leaves, then lined with softer elements like feathers, hair, and wool. This construction process can take between five to eight days. A clutch typically consists of four to six white eggs, each approximately two centimeters in size. The female primarily incubates the eggs for 12 to 17 days, with the male remaining close by. After hatching, both parents actively feed the nestlings. Young Black Redstarts fledge, or leave the nest, within 12 to 19 days, and the fledglings continue to receive parental support for up to three weeks. Pairs commonly raise two broods per season, and in favorable conditions, they may even produce a third.