General

Little Bunting: Small finch with dark-streaked gray-brown upperparts and heavily streaked white underparts. Face and crown are chestnut-brown and black-bordered. Eye-ring is conspicuously dull white; throat is white. Wings have two pale, thin bars. Legs are yellow. Tail has white outer feathers. Female is duller. Rare visitor to Alaska.

Range and Habitat

Little Bunting: Reported from St. Lawrence Island and the western Aleutians, northwestern Alaska, and California. Preferred habitats include mountain forests.

Breeding and Nesting

Little Bunting: Four to six glossy, pale green, gray, olive, or pink eggs, marked with black, brown, and lilac, are laid in a nest made of dried leaves and grass, lined with fine grass and moss, and built in a ground depression hidden by dense vegetation. Incubation ranges from 11 to 12 days and is carried out by the female.

Foraging and Feeding

Little Bunting: Eats mainly seeds and insects; forages primarily on the ground but also gleans foliage.

Readily Eats

Safflower, Apple Slices, Suet, Millet, Peanut Kernels, Fruit

Vocalization

Little Bunting: Song is a rich "tee-tee-tee-teerec" with repeated phrases. Call is an abrasive "tsick."

Similar Species

Little Bunting: Rustic Bunting is larger, lacks eye-rings, and has a heavier bill with pink lower mandible.