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Little Bunting

Little Bunting

Emberiza pusilla

Identify the Little Bunting by sound or photo and log your sightings with Birdpass.

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The Little Bunting is a tiny, crisply marked bunting of the northern taiga, recognised by its chestnut face and black crown stripes. It breeds from north-eastern Europe across northern Siberia to the Russian Far East and winters in northern India, southern China and northern Southeast Asia. Widespread and common, it is a scarce but regular vagrant in western Europe.

Did you know?

  • Its species name, pusilla, is Latin for “very small”.
  • Nestlings leave the ground nest when only about a week old – one of the shortest nestling periods among songbirds.

Voice

Flight call

About the species

Identification

A small bunting (12–14 cm). It has rufous cheeks neatly framed by a dark arc, a dark crown split by a rufous central stripe and a fine pale eye-ring. The underparts are pale with fine streaks on the breast and flanks, and the small conical bill has a straight culmen. Compared with female Reed Bunting it has warmer cheeks, a neater dark border to the ear coverts and finer streaking; its sharp “tsik” call is a good clue.

Family

Emberizidae

Size

Small (sparrow)

Colours

brown, black, white

About the habitat

Breeds in damp, open taiga – boggy conifer and birch woods, willow scrub and young regrowth on drained mires. On migration and in winter weedy fields, field margins, ditches and farmland, including mountain farmland.

Diet

Insects and spiders in the breeding season; otherwise mainly seeds and other plant material.

Behaviour

Forages low and on the ground in weedy patches, ditches and fields, especially on migration. It nests on the ground under low vegetation; both parents care for the young, and two broods a summer are common. The call is a sharp “tsik”, and the song a rolling, rhythmic series of notes.

Sources

Photo: Andreas Trepte, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Zwergammer.jpg

Sound: Tim Vochten, XC947258, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://xeno-canto.org/947258

Text: Wikipedia (English) + FinBIF species descriptions + Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0; FinBIF: CC BY 4.0; Wikipedia: CC BY-SA 4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_bunting

See also