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Yellow-breasted Bunting

Emberiza aureolaOrder: PASSERIFORMESFamily: Sparrows (Emberizidae)

Yellow-breasted Bunting Breeding Male Portrait
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General

Yellow-breasted Bunting: Medium-sized bunting with rufous upperparts and black head. Underparts are yellow with dark streaks on sides and flanks, and bold chestnut-brown breast band. Wings are black with large white shoulder patches and wing-bars. Female is duller with streaked gray-brown upperparts, pale yellow underparts with streaks on sides and flanks, and lacks black head and breast markings. Juvenile resembles female but has more extensively streaked underparts.

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.

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.



Author

Gary Owen Dick

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Range Map for Yellow-breasted Bunting
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Bird Call Credits: The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Martyn Stewart, http://www.naturesound.org, Redmond, Washington USA. The reuse or copying of bird calls in this database is strictly forbidden.
Family Buntings, Finches, Sparrows (Emberizidae)_blue
Species Emberiza aureola
Length5.5 Inches
Wingspan9 Inches

Yellow-breasted Bunting

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.

● Song: "fillyu-fillyu-fillyu-fillee-fillee-fillee-teyou-teyou", "tik-tik"

● Foraging & Feeding: Yellow-breasted Bunting: Feeds on seeds and insects; forages on the ground.

● Breeding & nesting: Yellow-breasted Bunting: Four to five green gray or pale blue green eggs with brown markings are laid in a nest made of grasses lined with mammal hair and fine grass, built on the ground or in low bush. Female incubates eggs for 13 days.

● Similar species: Yellow-breasted Bunting: None in range.

Flight Pattern

Swift flight on rapidly beating wings alternating with brief periods of wings pulled to sides.
Yellow-breasted Bunting Breeding Male Body Illustration
● Range & 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.
BreedingMonogamous, Solitary nester
PopulationCasual
MigrationMigratory
Weight0.8 Ounces