Crossword clues for whinchat
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Chat \Chat\, n.
-
Light, familiar talk; conversation; gossip.
Snuff, or fan, supply each pause of chat, With singing, laughing, ogling, and all that.
--Pope. -
(Zo["o]l.) A bird of the genus Icteria, allied to the warblers, in America. The best known species are the yellow-breasted chat ( Icteria viridis), and the long-tailed chat ( Icteria longicauda). In Europe the name is given to several birds of the family Saxicolid[ae], as the stonechat, and whinchat.
Bush chat. (Zo["o]l.) See under Bush.
Wiktionary
n. A small Old World songbird, (taxlink Saxicola rubetra species noshow=1), that feeds on insects.
WordNet
n. brown-and-buff European songbird of grassy meadows [syn: Saxicola rubetra]
Wikipedia
The whinchat (Saxicola rubetra) is a small migratory passerine bird breeding in Europe and western Asia and wintering in central Africa. At one time considered to be in thrush family, Turdidae, it is now placed in the Old World flycatcher family, Muscicapidae. Both sexes have a strong supercilium, brownish upper parts mottled darker, a pale throat and breast, a pale buff to whitish belly, and a blackish tail with white bases to the outer tail feathers, but in the breeding season, the male has an orange-buff throat and breast.
The whinchat is a solitary species, favouring open grassy country with rough vegetation and scattered small shrubs. It perches in elevated locations ready to pounce on the insects and other small invertebrates that form its diet. The nest is built by the female on the ground in coarse vegetation, with a clutch of four to seven eggs being laid. The hen incubates the eggs for about thirteen days and then both parents feed the nestlings. Fledging takes place about eighteen days after hatching and the parents continue to feed the young for another fortnight. Moulting takes place in late summer before the migration southwards, and again on the wintering grounds in Africa before the migration northwards in spring. The whinchat is a common species with a wide range and the International Union for Conservation of Nature has classified it as being of " least concern".
Usage examples of "whinchat".
Sir Archie sat for a time on the near shore, listening to the sandpipers--birds which were his special favourites--and watching the whinchats on the hill-side and the flashing white breasts of the water-ousels.
Then we passed along the wild shore, and the linnets were singing and the whinchats were calling as ever, and the old mounds of the heroes of the bygone were awesome to me now as long ago, when I looked at them standing lonesome along the shore with only the wash of the waves to disturb them.
Once removed from cricket, Martin became a reasonable companion again, and they took particular delight in the whinchats and wheatears on Ports Down and in a middle-spotted woodpecker eating ants like its great green cousin, which neither had seen before.