Identification: 14-15cm (5.5-6 in)
Adult male breeding: greyish head, bright pink tinge to body and wings, waxy orange-red bill.
Adult female breeding: pale grey or sandy-grey, with pale (or faint) pink tips to wing-coverts, sides of base of tail, chin and throat; bill pale yellow.
Call is a short or abrupt "chee" or "chit" often used as a contact note. The flight call is a soft "weechp".
Song is a very distinctive and characteristics drawn out nasal wheeze or monotone buzz "cheeee" or just "eeeeeee", rising slightly in scale and often followed by short tin-trumpet-like phrases, or interspersed with short high-pitched metallic clicks and whistles.
Distribution: Southeast Spain, north Africa (from Morocco, Algeria and central and southern Tunisia discontinuously eastward through libya possibly to northwest Egypt, south to Mauritania and east through northern Mali to Niger and Chad.
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