Amur stonechat

The Amur stonechat (Saxicola stejnegeri) or Stejneger's stonechat, is a species of stonechat native to eastern Asia. It breeds in central and eastern Siberia, Japan, Korea, northeastern China, and eastern Mongolia, and migrates south to southern China and Indochina in winter.^[1]

Female in wintering range, Hong Kong.

Amur stonechat
Male, eastern Hokkaido, Japan
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Muscicapidae
Genus:	Saxicola
Species:	S. stejnegeri
Binomial name
Saxicola stejnegeri (Parrot, 1908)
Synonyms
See text

It is a small bird 11.5–13 cm long, very closely similar to the Siberian stonechat in both plumage and behaviour, differing in only small details, notably having a slightly broader-based bill 4.7–5.7 mm wide (4.0–4.9 mm wide in Siberian stonechat) and slightly less white on the rump.^[2]

Vagrants have been reported west to Great Britain,^[3] east to Alaska,^[1] and south to Borneo.^[1]

Taxonomy

Amur stonechat was generally considered a subspecies of either common stonechat (as Saxicola torquatus stejnegeri^[2]) or Siberian stonechat (as Saxicola maurus stejnegeri,^[1]), but recent genetic evidence has shown that it is distinct, in a basal position in the common stonechat superspecies;^[4] on which basis it is now accepted as a distinct species.^[5]

The Latin binomial commemorates the Norwegian ornithologist Leonhard Hess Stejneger.