The European Stonechat (Saxicola rubicola) is a southern, black-and-white relative that has recently become a new breeding bird on Sweden's west coast, the male marked by a black head, a white neck collar and a red-orange breast. It measures 11-13 cm in length, has a wingspan of 18-21 cm and weighs 13-17 grams. The male's black head and distinct white patch on the sides of the neck contrast with the red-orange breast and dark, brown-spotted back; the female is browner and more subdued, lacking the male's black head. The bird often perches conspicuously atop a bush or grass stem, nervously flicking its tail.
Its call is a hard, smacking "tsäk-tsäk", often preceded by a thin "hwiit", sounding much like two stones knocked together, while the song is short, twittering and raspy. The species breeds in southern and western Europe and North Africa and has expanded northward in recent decades; in Sweden it remains a rare but increasing breeder, concentrated in Skåne, Halland and on Öland, with a population estimated at 100-500 pairs, growing in step with the warming climate, from isolated records in the 1990s to annual breeding today. It is a short-distance migrant of open heather moor and scrubland. Nesting on the ground, the female places her nest well hidden in dense vegetation, at a tussock or beneath a bush, and lays usually 5-6 eggs, which she incubates alone while both parents feed the chicks; the species can manage two broods in a favourable season, a productivity that helps explain its rapid increase. It hunts insects, larvae and spiders by watching from a vantage point high on a bush and making short, quick sallies to the ground or into the air, often returning to the same lookout perch between attempts.
Read about this species in Swedish →