South-central and south-eastern Europe, Asia Minor and Levant east to Caspian Sea, south-western Kazakhstan and north, western and southern Iran. Non-breeding central and eastern Sahel and north-eastern Africa.
Eastern Black-eared Wheatear (Oenanthe melanoleuca) [XC397136]
by Mehmet Ali Demiral from Lesvos, Northern Aegean, Egeo, Greece (song)
Eastern Black-eared Wheatear (Oenanthe melanoleuca) [XC81169]
by Ottavio Janni from Paklenica, Croatia (alarm call)
Subspecies
No subspecies.
Oenanthe hispanica (Sibley and Monroe 1990, 1993) was split into Black-eared Wheatear (Oenanthe hispanica) and Eastern Black-eared Wheatear (Oenanthe melanoleuca) by Sangster et al. (1999) but this treatment is not followed by the BirdLife Taxnomic Working Group because both forms hybridise and intergrade into each other.
Considered by some authors to be a subspecies of Black-eared Wheatear (Oenanthe hispanica).