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. The genus name Emberiza is from Old German Embritz, a bunting. The specific rustica is Latin for "rustic, simple".^[2]

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.
2. Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London, United Kingdom: Christopher Helm. pp. 145, 344. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.

External links

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