Overview
Yellow-breasted Bunting: Medium bunting, rufous upperparts, black head. Yellow underparts with dark streaks on sides and flanks, bold chestnut-brown breast band. Black wings with large white shoulder patches, wing-bars. Swift flight, alternates rapid wing beats with wings pulled to sides.
Range and Habitat
Yellow-breasted Bunting: Eurasian native; range includes Finland, Belarus, and Ukraine in the west, through Kazakhstan, China and Mongolia, to far eastern Russia, Korea and northern Japan; in spring migration occasionally visits western Aleutian Islands. Breeds in wet meadows with tall vegetation and scattered scrub, riverside thickets, and secondary scrub; winters in large flocks in cultivated areas, rice fields, reed beds, and grasslands.
Topo Map:
Perching-like Body
Listen to Call
Voice Text
"fillyu-fillyu-fillyu-fillee-fillee-fillee-teyou-teyou", "tik-tik"
Interesting Facts
The Yellow-breasted Bunting was first described in 1773 by Peter Simon Pallas, a German zoologist and botanist who worked in Russia.
It was formerly classified as a Near Threatened species by the IUCN. But new research has shown it to be rarer than it was believed. Consequently, it is uplisted to Vulnerable status in 2008.
A group of buntings are collectively known as a "decoration", "mural", and "sacrifice" of buntings.
Bird Term Glossary
Author
Gary Owen Dick
Artist
Samira Belous
.