Emberiza leucocephalos
Silhouette: L. Shyamal · PhyloPic
In 3 days <5%
The pine bunting (Emberiza leucocephalos) is a passerine bird in the bunting family Emberizidae, a group most modern authors now separate from the finches, Fringillidae. It lives in Eurosiberia east of the Urals. The genus name Emberiza is from Old German Embritz, a bunting. The specific leucocephalos is from Ancient Greek leukos, "whites", and kephalos, "headed".
The pine bunting is a robust 16–17.5-centimetre bird, with a thick seed-eater's bill. The male has a white crown and cheeks, and a chestnut forehead and throat, and a heavily streaked brown back. The female is much duller and is more streaked on its undersides. Non-breeding plumage is like that of a yellowhammer, but with all the yellow replaced by white. Its song and calls are like those of the yellowhammer.
The pine bunting breeds across much of temperate Asia, migrating south to central Asia, north India and southern China in winter. It is common in all sorts of open land with some scrub or trees, including cultivation, but has a greater preference for open forest (usually pines) than the closely related yellowhammer. It is a rare vagrant to western... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Camargue | 🇫🇷 France |
More parks will be added in future updates.
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Novosibirsk | 🇷🇺 Russia | |
| 2 | Ulaanbaatar | 🇲🇳 Mongolia | |
| 3 | Ramallah | 🇵🇸 Palestine | |
| 4 | Beijing | 🇨🇳 China |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Pine Bunting sighting in Beijing on a given day, based on 43 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 218th most-seen of the 324 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to under 5%, if each day is a fresh chance.
Any time of year
In every month with enough records, under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Pine Bunting in Beijing on a given day, so our monthly data shows no clear season.
Between 8 and 11 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Pine Bunting sightings with a recorded time, and about 8 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
4th of 4
Of the 4 cities where we can rate Pine Bunting sightings, Beijing ranks 4th at under 5%. The best odds are in Novosibirsk (Russia, about 10%), Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia, under 5%) and Ramallah (Palestine, under 5%).
Same genus: Emberiza
The closest relatives of the Pine Bunting that you can see in Beijing (genus Emberiza, Old World Buntings) are Little Bunting (about 20%), Yellow-throated Bunting (about 10%) and Pallas's Bunting (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Pine Bunting is recorded against all the birds logged in Beijing (43 verified sightings), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
