Yellow-breasted Bunting
A species of Old World Buntings Scientific name : Emberiza aureola Genus : Old World Buntings
Yellow-breasted Bunting, A species of Old World Buntings
Botanical name: Emberiza aureola
Genus: Old World Buntings
Content
Description General Info
Photo By Madina Arystanova , used under CC-BY-SA-3.0 /Cropped and compressed from original 
Description
The yellow-breasted bunting is a small passerine, ranging from 14 to 16 cm (5.5 to 6.3 in) in length, and weighing 17 to 26 g (0.6 to 0.9 oz). For a bunting, it is large and rather stocky. The breeding male has bright yellow underparts with black flank streaks, brown upperparts, black face and throat bar, and a pink lower mandible. The female has a heavily streaked grey-brown back, and less intensely yellow underparts. She has a whitish face with dark crown, eye and cheek stripes. The juvenile is similar, but the background colour of the underparts and face is buff. 
Size
14 cm (5.5 in)
Life Expectancy
7 years
Feeding Habits
Yellow-breasted Bunting predominantly feeds on seeds and invertebrates. It forages on the ground and employs a pecking method to extract food, often at dawn or dusk. This species shows a particular preference for insects during breeding season, an adaptation aligning with the high-energy needs of reproduction.
Habitat
Yellow-breasted Bunting is predominantly found across broader Eurasian regions, from dense and deciduous scrublands to bushy areas. Their breeding habitats include wet meadows with tall herbage, often by watersides, as well as various wooded regions with willows, birches, or solitary spruce trees. During the non-breeding season, they are located in agricultural landscapes such as rice fields, farmlands with hedgerows, and grasslands. Additionally, yellow-breasted Bunting occupies alpine meadows, peat bogs, and can adapt to secondary scrublands and areas of regrowth after fire. Whether in more eastern locales with dry or damp meadows, or the high-elevation tundra, yellow-breasted Bunting finds suitable nesting sites where there's ample vegetation for cover and perching.
Dite type
Granivorous
General Info
Feeding Habits
Bird Feeder Type
Platform
Distribution Area
Schoeniclus aureolus aureolus breeds in boreal forests of Finland to Bering Sea migrating to Indochina Schoeniclus aureolus ornatus breeds from the Amur River to Manchuria, N Korea, Kamchatka and Kuril Islands. It is migratory, wintering in south-east Asia, India, and southern China. It is a rare but regular wanderer to western Europe. There are also ~4 records from the Aleutian Islands of Alaska and a 2017 record from Labrador, Canada. The species winters in large flocks in cultivated areas, rice fields and grasslands, preferring to roost in rice-fields.
Species Status
Populations have declined precipitously since the early 2000s, and the species is now considered to be critically endangered. The decline of the yellow-breasted bunting is likely to be caused by substantial trapping during migration and most specifically at winter sites. Birds are flushed then caught in mist-nets, to be sold for consumption as "sparrows" or "rice birds". Even though the actions have been restricted to a small area in southern China, it has become more widespread and popular to increasing wealth, and hunters now travel long distances to find sufficient birds. Shifts in rice paddy irrigation practices have reduced the quality and quantity of wintering habitats, including the loss of water stubble, and the loss of reedbeds has reduced available roost sites.
Scientific Classification
Phylum
Chordates Class
Birds Order
Perching birds Family
New world sparrows Genus
Old World Buntings Species
Yellow-breasted Bunting 
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