The northern wheatear was first formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the 10th edition of his Systema Naturae as Motacilla oenanthe.

[6] Its English name has nothing to do with wheat or with ear, but is an altered (perhaps bowdlerised) form of white-arse, which refers to its prominent white rump.

seebohmi is regarded as a distinct species by some authorities such as the International Ornithological Committee, Seebohm’s or the Atlas wheatear.

The northern wheatear makes one of the longest journeys of any small bird, crossing ocean, ice, and desert.

[11] Arguably, some of the birds that breed in north Asia could take a shorter route and winter in south Asia; however, their inherited inclination to migrate takes them back to Africa,[11] completing one of the longest migrations for its body size in the animal kingdom[12] Birds of the large, bright Greenland race, leucorhoa, make one of the longest transoceanic crossings of any passerine.

In spring most migrate along a route (commonly used by waders and waterfowl) from Africa via continental Europe, the British Isles, and Iceland to Greenland.

However, autumn sightings from ships suggest that some birds cross the North Atlantic directly from Canada and Greenland to southwest Europe, a distance of up to 2,500 kilometres (1,600 mi).

[11] Miniature tracking devices have recently shown that the northern wheatear has one of the longest migratory flights known - 30,000 km (18,640 miles), from sub-Saharan Africa to their Arctic breeding grounds.

[1] In the 18th and 19th centuries wheatears were considered a delicacy in England, called "the English ortolan" and Sussex shepherds supplemented their income by selling the birds they trapped.