This species is restricted to the European continent and northwest Africa (Keller et al., 2020; BirdLife International, 2024). At the national scale, it occurs in the Iberian Peninsula and the western Mediterranean islands, with some scattered populations in Great Britain, France, and Italy. It avoids deforested areas and sites without vegetation cover; therefore, in Spain it is absent from the plateaus, the Ebro and Guadalquivir valleys, and also avoids dehesas and steppes in Extremadura (Justo and Romay in SEO/BirdLife, 2022).

In Madrid, it is an abundant species due to the large extent of shrubland habitats. It occupies the piedmont areas of the mountains, mountain shrublands up to 2,000 m a.s.l., and the shrubland areas of the southeast. Its highest densities occur in rockrose and kermes oak scrub, and to a lesser extent in juniper and thermophilous pine forests (Díaz et al., 1994).

Within the national park, it is typical of the rockrose scrub in the southern area, on the slopes of Pico de la Maliciosa and Sierra de los Porrones; it also occupies the upper parts of the densest mountain heaths in the Cuerda Larga, being more abundant in the northern zone between Pico del Nevero and Peña Cabra.