Appearance:

Long-tailed and slim bunting with striking head pattern and grey bill. Adult male unmistakable with lead-grey head and black eye-, crown- and moustache-stripe framing grey cheeks. Female with brownish tone to facial markings, not so pure grey breast and less rufous underparts. Both sexes with heavily streaked back, grey lesser coverts and white-tipped median and greater coverts. Rufous rump. Immature birds usually show emerging black eye- and moustache-stripe, and some black-tipped ear-coverts.

Sound:

Song variable, but usually distinct. Recalls stuttering Dunnock. Jerky, uneven thythm and tempo, with fairly large register and recognizible bunting timbre. May include mimicry. Alarm call a thin, short "seeeep", with clipped ending, similar to Cirl Bunting.

Song:

Distribution:

Xeno-canto: map

Ecology:

Birdlife ecology

Links:

Observation.org Latest observations

Video IBC

Image search Flickr NB! May give other species

Sound search at Xeno-canto

Featherbase

CC

CC-photo:Oscar en Jolanda Balm, Licence,Link.

Appearance:

Medium sized bunting, resembling a compact Yellowhammer in shape. Head green with yellow markings and underparts orange-brown. Distinct and characteristic, yellow eye-ring and earth-brown (not rufous) rump in all plumages. Female like male, but duller coloured, with streaked head and chest.

Sound:

Distinct bunting-like timbre with very prominent harmonics. Song simple, but varies from region to region. Sometimes structurally similar to yellowhammer, but slower, more melancholic, and with more clearly audible harmonics f.ex. "tze-ti tze-ti tze-ti tweeeee". Beginning with repeated alternating notes (tze-ti) and ending on a lower note fading out with a rising pitch. Sometimes without the ending note (like yellowhammer). Calls: a vaguely House Sparrow-like "chepp", with a ringing quality, and a sharper cut-off "zeep".

Song:

Distribution:

Xeno-canto: map

Ecology:

Birdlife ecology

Links:

Observation.org Latest observations

Video IBC

Image search Flickr NB! May give other species

Sound search at Xeno-canto

Featherbase

CC

CC-photo:Mick Sway, Licence,Link.