Habitat

This species is mostly found in open deciduous and mixed forests, and edges and clearings in dense forest, including conifer forests and boreal taiga of northern Siberia; also more widely in plantations, hedgerows, orchards, parks, gardens (including in urban and suburban areas), edges of cultivation, olive groves and almost any group of trees or bushes. In Europe it shows a preference for oaks (Quercus); in Siberia, western China, and Mongolia principally in riverine birch (Betula) or willow (Salix) thickets and mixed forest, and in isolated clumps of trees on otherwise open steppe, around villages and other settlements, in Mongolia it is also in open semi-desert and montane forest. In northwest Africa it favors cork oak (Quercus suber) , holm oak (Quercus ilex), and Atlas cedars (Cedrus atlantica), and occurs in palm groves in southern Morocco. In southwest Jordan a small population exists in scattered junipers (Juniperus) and oleanders (Nerium) at edges of wadis (78 Andrews, I. J. (1995). The Birds of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Published privately, Musselburgh, UK. Close ). In Turkmenistan, it is common in black saksaul (Haloxylon ammodendrum) shrubland (79 Rustamov, A. K. (1994). Ecology of birds in the Karakum Desert. In: Biogeography and Ecology of Turkmenistan (V. Fet and K. I. Atamuradov, Editors). Monographiae Biologicae, volume 72. Springer, Dordrecht, Netherlands. Close ).

In Europe this species is found principally in the lowlands (rare above 500 m in Scotland), but to 1,950 m in Switzerland, in the Middle East to 1,800 m in Lebanon, and in northwest Africa to 1,850 m.