Black Redstart

The Black Redstart is a small and discreetly coloured bird, frequently found in a human environment, but not exclusively. Across their very wide range, stretching from Western Europe to Eastern China, the species includes five subspecies that are easily distinguishable, at least in the males.
The adult male in the west European subspecies gibraltariensis, which inhabits France, appears completely black from a distance. On closer inspection however, you can see that its upperparts are a slate-grey colour, contrasting sharply on the wings with a whitish area formed by the outer edges of the secondaries. The front of its body is black - forehead, lores, cheeks, throat, and breast - to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the individual. Its dark eye does not stand out much against this black background. Usually, it has an element of whiteness at the rear of its forehead. Its belly has a gradient of grey, from front to back. The whole back of its body, its rump and upper-tail coverts, as well as its lower belly and under-tail coverts, is an intense orange. Its tail is a dark grey-brown colour near its central rectrices, while its outer rectrices are orange, a characteristic element that is very visible when it takes flight. Its beak and feet are black.
The male obtains the fully adult plumage only when it is two years old. An individual of one year old, in contrast, is grayer, less black, and often lacks the clear area on the wing. Despite this, it is able to reproduce.
The female is a greyish-brown with brown tinges on its cheeks and its wings are darker, lacking the white area. Its underside is a greyish-beige, sometimes tinged with fawn. The tail is the same as that of the male. Its under-tail coverts are a pale orange.The juvenile resembles the female, but it is darker above and below. At first, the yellow lores indicate its young age.
Subspecies differ in the importance of the orange colour of the lower parts of the male. There is a clinal variation between the western subspecies gibraltariensis in which only the abdomen and undertail coverts are orange, and the easternmost rufiventris in which the entire belly and lower chest are orange, which is confusing for a European. The same variation applies to the colour of the mantle and the coverts which change from dark grey in the west to black in the east. On the other hand, the pale wing patch tends to diminish from west to east, disappearing in rufiventris. The male of the Asian subspecies phoenicuroides is disturbing, as its name implies. Without a pale wing patch and showing a pale patch behind the black forehead, it resembles the male of the Black Redstart or a hybrid ochruros x phoenicurus.