Yellow-breasted bunting

The yellow-breasted bunting (Emberiza aureola) is a passerine bird in the bunting family Emberizidae that is found across the Boreal and East Palearctic. The genus name Emberiza is from Old German Embritz, a bunting. The specific aureola is Latin for "golden".[2] The bird's call is a distinctive zick, and the song is a clear tru-tru, tri-tri.

Yellow-breasted bunting
in Nepal

Critically Endangered  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Emberizidae
Genus: Emberiza
Species:
E. aureola
Binomial name
Emberiza aureola
Pallas, 1773
Eggs of Emberiza aureola MHNT

Until 2004, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature considered the yellow-breasted bunting to be a species of least concern. Since 2004, it has been gradually upgraded to a status of Critically Endangered due to rapid drops in population sizes.[1] It is subject to heavy hunting pressure in China, through which most specimens pass during migration.[3]

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.[4]

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.

Distribution and habitat

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.[1]

Breeding

The yellow-breasted bunting breeds in open scrubby areas that consist of dry water rice fields for foraging and reedbeds for roosting, often near water, and is present in Siberia. It lays four to six eggs in a nest on the ground. Its food consists of insects when feeding young, and otherwise seeds.

Conservation

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.[1]

gollark: It is literally the cheapest ryzen.
gollark: `ssh sinthorions-computer.com cat /proc/cpuinfo`
gollark: That's horrible.#
gollark: processor : 0vendor_id : AuthenticAMDcpu family : 23model : 1model name : AMD Ryzen 3 1200 Quad-Core Processorstepping : 1microcode : 0x800111ccpu MHz : 3410.279cache size : 512 KBphysical id : 0siblings : 4core id : 0cpu cores : 4apicid : 0initial apicid : 0fpu : yesfpu_exception : yescpuid level : 13wp : yesflags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc rep_good nopl nonstop_tsc cpuid extd_apicid aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq monitor ssse3 fma cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 movbe popcnt aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy abm sse4a misalignsse 3dnowprefetch osvw skinit wdt tce topoext perfctr_core perfctr_nb bpext perfctr_llc mwaitx cpb hw_pstate sme ssbd sev vmmcall fsgsbase bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 rdseed adx smap clflushopt sha_ni xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1 xsaves clzero irperf xsaveerptr arat npt lbrv svm_lock nrip_save tsc_scale vmcb_clean flushbyasid decodeassists pausefilter pfthreshold avic v_vmsave_vmload vgif overflow_recov succor smcabugs : sysret_ss_attrs null_seg spectre_v1 spectre_v2 spec_store_bypassbogomips : 6989.20TLB size : 2560 4K pagesclflush size : 64cache_alignment : 64address sizes : 43 bits physical, 48 bits virtualpower management: ts ttp tm hwpstate eff_freq_ro [13] [14]
gollark: Look, it even lists the bugs!

References
  1. BirdLife International (2017). "Emberiza aureola". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2017: e.T22720966A119335690. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2017-3.RLTS.T22720966A119335690.en. Retrieved 15 January 2018.
  2. Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London, United Kingdom: Christopher Helm. pp. 62, 145. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
  3. "abundant bird species could be wiped out like passenger pigeons". Retrieved 9 June 2015.
  4. Brazil, Mark (2009). Birds of East Asia. London, UK: Christopher Helm. p. 488. ISBN 978-0-7136-7040-0.
  • OBC 24 photographs (see pulldown menu at page bottom)

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