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Red-tailed Wheatears are robin-sized birds. Their plumage is dimorphic, i.e. males and females are different. Male Red-tailed Wheatears have a white chin and frons/supercilia, with a black eye stripe in between that widens behind the eyes. The crown, mantle and upperwings are brownish-grey, with dark-grey flight feathers that have rufous edge lining. The vent, flanks and rump have a faint reddish hue. Females have light-grey to light brownish-grey front. The head and back are darker brownish-grey. They have some faint reddish hue on vent and undertail coverts. The uppertail of both sexes is dark-grey. The irises are black. The relatively long, straight and slender bill is dark-grey, as are legs and feet.

The Red-tailed Wheatear is no longer considered to be race "chrysopygia" of the Kurdistan Wheatear (Oenanthe xanthoprymna), but has now been given full species status.

The overall distribution of this species can be assessed, and specific locations where birds have been spotted can be found, based on individual sighting reports submitted by birdwatchers to ebird.org .

The global distribution of the Red-tailed Wheatear is available HERE .

The breeding range of Red-tailed Wheatears encompasses mountain ranges from Anatolia in Asia Minor into south-western and central Asia (Turkistan, Uzbekistan, Armenia and Azerbaijan), northern Iraq and Iran and eastwards into Afghanistan, Pakistan and north-western India.into , such as e.g. the highlands of Iran and Afghanistan. They spend the winters in Arabia and the eastern tip of Africa. In passage, they can be found in most areas in between.

Red-tailed Wheatears are mostly found as winter visitors in northern Arabia, in particular in the UAE and Oman. both along the coastal fringe and in the mountain ranges.

Red-tailed Wheatears have a preference for mountainous, stony and even barren country with few shrubs. During the winter they come closer to human settlements, e.g. around (fallow) agricultural land, quarries and ruins.

Usually a single, sometimes two, Red-tailed Wheatears were spotted by us on the Campus of Sultan Qaboos University, near Muscat, in December 2009. They are winter residents in a semi-arid, rock-strewn area with sparse acacia growth and were seen until February 2010. They are hard to approach in open country and will move to a different perch before one gets close.