The rustic bunting (''Emberiza rustica'') is a

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by th ...

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

in the

bunting Bunting may refer to: Animals Birds * Bunting (bird) or Emberizidae, a family of Eurasian and African passerine birds * New World buntings or ''Passerina'', a genus of American passerine birds in the family Cardinalidae * Blue bunting, a species ...

family Emberizidae, a group now separated by most modern authors from the

finch The true finches are small to medium-sized passerine birds in the family Fringillidae. Finches have stout conical bills adapted for eating seeds and nuts and often have colourful plumage. They occupy a great range of habitats where they are usua ...

es, Fringillidae. The genus name ''Emberiza'' is from

Old German Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050. There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old High ...

''Embritz'', a bunting. The specific ''rustica'' is

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

for "rustic, simple". It breeds across the northern

Palearctic The Palearctic or Palaearctic is the largest of the eight biogeographic realms of the Earth. It stretches across all of Eurasia north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa. The realm consists of several bioregions: the Euro-Si ...

. It is

migratory Migration, migratory, or migrate may refer to: Human migration * Human migration, physical movement by humans from one region to another ** International migration, when peoples cross state boundaries and stay in the host state for some minimum le ...

, wintering in south-east Asia, Japan, Korea, and eastern China. It is a rare wanderer to western Europe. It breeds in wet

conifer Conifers are a group of cone-bearing seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a single extant class, Pinopsida. All ex ...

ous woodland. Four to six eggs are laid in a nest in a bush or on the ground. Its natural food consists of seeds, and when feeding young, insects. This bird is similar in size to a

reed bunting The common reed bunting (''Emberiza schoeniclus'') is a passerine bird in the bunting family Emberizidae, a group now separated by most modern authors from the finches, Fringillidae. The genus name ''Emberiza'' is from Old German ''Embritz'', a ...

. It has white underparts with reddish flank, pink legs and a pink lower mandible. The summer male has a black head with a white throat and supercilium and a reddish breast band. The female has a heavily streaked brown back and brown face with a whitish supercilium. She resembles a female reed bunting, but has the reddish flank streaks, a chestnut nape and a pink, not grey, lower mandible. The call is a distinctive ''zit'', and the song is a melancholic ''delee-deloo-delee''.

References

External links

OBC
11 photographs (see pulldown menu at page bottom) {{Taxonbar, from=Q286809 rustic bunting Birds of Eurasia Birds of Russia rustic bunting