Yellow-breasted Bunting

Taxobox
name = Yellow-breasted Bunting
status = VU
status_system = IUCN3.1


image_width = 220px
image_caption = Adult male (left) and female (right)
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Aves
ordo = Passeriformes
familia = Emberizidae
genus = "Emberiza"
species = "E. aureola"
binomial = "Emberiza aureola"
binomial_authority = Pallas, 1773

The Yellow-breasted Bunting, "Emberiza aureola", is an Eurasian passerine bird in the bunting family (Emberizidae).

This bird is similar in size to a Reed Bunting, but longer-billed. The breeding male has bright yellow underparts with black flank streaks, brown upperparts, black face and throat bar, and a pink lower mandible.

The female has a heavily streaked grey-brown back, and less intensely yellow underparts. She has a whitish face with dark crown, eye and cheek stripes. The juvenile is similar, but the background colour of the underparts and face is buff.

The call is a distinctive "zick", and the song is a clear "tru-tru, tri-tri".

It breeds in northeastern Europe and across northern Asia. It is migratory, wintering in southeast Asia, India, and southern China. It is a rare but regular wanderer to western Europe.

The Yellow-breasted Bunting breeds in open scrubby areas, often near water, and it is very common in Siberia. It lays 4-6 eggs in a nest on the ground. Its food consists of insects when feeding young, and otherwise seeds.

It was formerly classified as a Near Threatened species by the IUCN [BLI (2004)] . But new research has shown it to be rarer than it was believed. Consequently, it is uplisted to Vulnerable status in 2008 [BLI (2008)] .

Footnotes

References

*|year=2004|id=53526|title=Emberiza aureola|downloaded=11 May 2006
* (2008): [http://www.birdlife.org/action/science/species/global_species_programme/whats_new.html [2008 IUCN Redlist status changes] . Retrieved 2008-MAY-23.

External links

* [http://orientalbirdimages.org/search.php?action=searchresult&Bird_ID=1932 OBC] 24 photographs (see pulldown menu at page bottom)