Rustic bunting

Rustic bunting
Conservation status
Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Emberizidae
Genus:	Emberiza
Species:	E. rustica
Binomial name
Emberiza rustica Pallas, 1776

Emberiza rustica MHNT

The rustic bunting (Emberiza rustica) is a passerine bird in the bunting family Emberizidae, a group now separated by most modern authors from the finches, Fringillidae.

It breeds across northern Europe and Asia. It is migratory, wintering in south-east Asia, Japan, and eastern China. It is a rare wanderer to western Europe.

It breeds in wet coniferous woodland. Four to six eggs are laid in a nest in a bush or on the ground. Its natural food consists of seeds, and when feeding young, insects.

This bird is similar in size to a reed bunting. It has white underparts with reddish flank, pink legs and a pink lower mandible. The summer male has a black head with a white throat and supercilium and a reddish breast band.

The female has a heavily streaked brown back and brown face with a whitish supercilium. She resembles a female reed bunting, but has the reddish flank streaks, a chestnut nape and a pink, not grey, lower mandible.

The call is a distinctive zit, and the song is a melancholic delee-deloo-delee.

References

1. BirdLife International (2012). "Emberiza rustica". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2013.2. International Union for Conservation of Nature. Retrieved 26 November 2013.

External links

• OBC 11 photographs (see pulldown menu at page bottom)