Black-headed Bunting

How to identify

Field marks

1. Male in the breeding season has a black hood
2. Male in the breeding season has chestnut upperparts
3. Male in the breeding season has a bright yellow belly
4. Body length 15 cm; tail relatively long

Male, female and young

Female resembles a faded male, with a paler belly, gray-rufous back and gray head; juvenile resembles the female but has a yellow belly.

Voice

In winter, a monosyllabic “tweet” or soft “zrit”; song is a series of loud phrases that ends abruptly.

Similar species

Red-headed Bunting

Females and juveniles are very difficult to distinguish from Red-headed Bunting; Black-headed Bunting usually has darker cheeks than throat.

Where and when it's recorded

Black-headed Bunting has been recorded at 321 of the 8,171 birding hotspots we track, in 50 countries and regions.

Records by month Northern Hemisphere

Where it's recorded most

1. Aras Kuş Halkalama İstasyonuTürkiye319 records
2. Tsiknias river – lower areaGreece309 records
3. Manjeera Wildlife SanctuaryIndia285 records

Countries and regions with the most records

IndiaGreeceTürkiyeChinaBulgariaUnited Arab EmiratesNepalGeorgia

eBird records via GBIF up to 2024-12-31. A record means someone listed it; more records partly mean more birders, not more birds.

About

The black-headed bunting (Melophus melanocephalus) is a passerine bird in the Old World bunting family Emberizidae. It breeds in south-east Europe east to Iran and migrates in winter mainly to India, with some individuals moving further into south-east Asia. Like others in its family, it is found in open grassland habitats where they fly in flocks in search of grains and seed.

Excerpt from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 · authors · Read more on Wikipedia

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