It breeds in the spring when a clutch of usually four pale blue, slightly speckled eggs is laid in a well-concealed nest made of grasses, mosses and stems.

The genus name Oenanthe is derived from the Ancient Greek oenos (οίνος) "wine" and anthos (ανθός) "flower".

[4] The head and nape of the adult male desert wheatear are a pale sandy-grey colour with the feathers tipped grey.

[6] The female has similar plumage but the rump and upper tail-coverts are more sandy brown, the lores, chin and throat pale buff and the dark parts of the tail brownish-black.

The juvenile is similar to the adult female but the feathers on the upper parts of the body have pale centres and brown tips which gives the bird a more speckled appearance.

There is a single annual moult in late summer and by the following spring the feathers have become rather abraded, with the white tips tending to be worn away, leaving the bird with rather richer colouring.

Birds from this region migrate southwards to overwinter in northeastern Africa, the Arabian peninsula, Iraq and Pakistan.

The western race breeds in North Africa from Morocco and Rio de Oro to the part of Egypt west of the River Nile.

[5] The desert wheatear is an occasional vagrant to the United Kingdom, and a female got blown off course in October 2012 during its autumn migration and was seen in a sandpit in Essex.

It is able to hover for short periods and when it finds a large prey insect, with which it is unable to cope, it sometimes displays in front of it by fluttering its wings.

The nest is often concealed behind gorse (Ulex europaeus) bushes or other bushy vegetation and is a tidily-built cup made of grasses, mosses and stems, lined with fine roots and hairs, and sometimes small feathers.