Black-headed Bunting (Emberiza melanocephala)
About the Black-headed Bunting
The black-headed bunting (Emberiza melanocephala) is a passerine bird in the 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. Adult males are well marked with yellow underparts, chestnut back and a black head. Adult females in breeding plumage look like duller males. In other plumages, they can be hard to separate from the closely related red-headed bunting and natural hybridization occurs between the two species in the zone of overlap of their breeding ranges in northern Iran.
A real field recording of the Black-headed Bunting. Press play and focus on the rhythm and pitch of each phrase.
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Our streaming copies are mirrored from the original xeno-canto file and transcoded to 96 kbps mono — a modification, so we note it here; the licence for each recording is named in its credit below.
1 recording on this page · licensed Public Domain / CC0 ×1 · mirrored on this server, free for commercial reuse · recorded in Austria, Croatia, France, Georgia, Greece, India and elsewhere · xeno-canto lists 229 recordings for this species in total.
Similar species
- Black-faced BuntingEmberiza spodocephalarecording
- Brown-rumped BuntingEmberiza affinisprofile
- Cabanis's BuntingEmberiza cabanisiprofile
- Cape BuntingEmberiza capensisprofile
- Chestnut BuntingEmberiza rutilaprofile
- Chestnut-eared BuntingEmberiza fucataprofile
Species grouped by shared genus, family and range.