The whinchat (Saxicola rubetra) is a small migratory passerine bird breeding in Europe and western Asia and wintering in central Africa.

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.

[14] The whinchat is a short-tailed bird, moving on the ground with small, rapid hops and frequently bobbing and flicking its wings and tail.

The female is duller overall, in particular having browner face mask, pale buffy-brown breast, and a buff supercilium and malar stripe, and smaller or no white wing patches.

[8] Available stopover sites are important for the successful migration of whinchat between Africa and Europe, where they face the barriers of the Sahara and Mediterranean Sea.

[8] During the breeding season in the UK, at the landscape-scale, whinchats favour habitats with high plant species richness and steeper slopes.

[18] However, at the territory scale, low-elevation areas with a heterogeneous vegetation structure and high density of perches and tussocks are preferred.

[20] A lone vagrant was sighted for the first time in India by birder R. Mohammed Saleem during their Great Indian Bird Expedition SEEK2019 at Chambal National Park.

The nest is built solely by the female, and is made of dried grasses and moss, and lined with hairs and fine bents.

Nests are also lost due to agricultural operations such as silage cutting (the main factor in the species' decline in western Europe)[22] or trampling by livestock, and are sometimes parasitised by the common cuckoo.

[8] Whinchats are insectivorous, feeding largely (about 80–90%) on insects, but also consume a wide range of other invertebrates including spiders, small snails and worms.

[8] Fairly common across its wide range, the whinchat is classified as a species of "least concern" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

[1] Some populations are however in serious decline, particularly in the west of its range in Britain, Ireland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany, primarily due to agricultural intensification.