Amur Stonechat

It resembles its closest living relative the European stonechat (S. rubicola), but is typically darker above and paler below, with a white rump and whiter underparts with less orange on the breast. The male in breeding plumage has black upperparts and head (lacking the brownish tones of the European stonechat), a conspicuous white collar, scapular patch and rump, and a restricted area of orange on the throat. The female has pale brown upperparts and head, white neck patches (not a full collar), and a pale, unstreaked pinkish-yellow rump. Males in winter plumage are intermediate between summer males and females, with a supercilium resembling the whinchat (S. rubetra); from this species and the female it can be distinguished by the full white collar. If seen at close distance, it can be recognized that its primary remiges are distinctly longer than in S. rubicola. In this, it closely resembles the whinchat, which like S. maurus is adapted to long-distance migrations. The male has a clicking call, like two pebbles knocked together. The song is high and twittering like the dunnock (Prunella modularis), an unrelated passeridan songbird belonging to the Passeroidea. There are five or six subspecies, with S. m. maurus (described above) and the distinct but similar S. m. stejnegeri found across northern and central Asia. The southern S. m. variegatus (west of the Caspian Sea), S. m. armenicus (eastern Turkey to Iran), S. m. indicus (Himalaya) and the Turkestan stonechat S. m. przewalskii (southwest China) are distinguished by larger white areas on the plumage. In the past, S. maurus was usually included in S. torquatus as part of the "common stonechat", but that scientific name nowadays is restricted to the African stonechat. Analysis of mtDNA cytochrome b sequence and nDNA microsatellite fingerprinting data, though not unequivocal, together with the evidence from morphology, behaviour and biogeography seems to indicate that the present bird can be considered a distinct species. The European stonechat is its western sister species in the Eurasian lineage of stonechats; their ancestors separated during the Late Pliocene or Early Pleistocene, roughly 1.5-2.5 million years ago at the onset of the Quaternary glaciation. Its scientific name means "dark rock-dweller". Saxicola derives from Latin saxum "rock" + incola "inhabitant"; maurus is Latinized from Greek maúros (μαύρος) "black" (cf. "moor"), in reference to the upperpart colour as compared to S. rubicola.