Emberiza melanocephala
Silhouette: L. Shyamal · PhyloPic
In 3 days <5% in a week ~10%
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.
The black-headed bunting was formally described in 1769 by the Austrian naturalist Giovanni Antonio Scopoli under the binomial name Emberiza melanocephala. The type locality is Carniola in Slovenia. The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised. The genus name Emberiza is from Old German Embritz, a bunting, and the specific melanocephala combines the Ancient Greek melas meaning "black", and kephale meaning "head".
This bird is 15... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chitwan National Park | 🇳🇵 Nepal | |
| 2 | Kanha National Park | 🇮🇳 India |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Karaj | 🇮🇷 Iran | |
| 2 | Vasai-Virar | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 3 | Kolkata | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 4 | Istanbul | 🇹🇷 Turkey | |
| 5 | Kathmandu | 🇳🇵 Nepal | |
| 6 | Phnom Penh | 🇰🇭 Cambodia | |
| 7 | Antalya | 🇹🇷 Turkey | |
| 8 | Nagpur | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 9 | Indore | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 10 | Kalyan-Dombivli | 🇮🇳 India |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Black-headed Bunting sighting in Phnom Penh on a given day, based on 26 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 112th most-seen of the 154 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to under 5%, and over a week to about 10%, if each day is a fresh chance.
January
In that month about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Black-headed Bunting in Phnom Penh on a given day, against under 5% in February to December, the lowest months. That is one of Phnom Penh's driest months, with about 15 mm of rain against 190 mm in June.
Between 9 am and noon
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Black-headed 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.
6th of 14
Of the 14 cities where we can rate Black-headed Bunting sightings, Phnom Penh ranks 6th at under 5%. The best odds are in Karaj (Iran, about 10%), Vasai-Virar (India, under 5%) and Kolkata (India, under 5%).
Same order: Passeriformes
The closest relatives of the Black-headed Bunting that you can see in Phnom Penh (order Passeriformes, Perching Birds) are Yellow-vented Bulbul (over 90%), Eurasian Tree Sparrow (about 90%) and Malaysian Pied-Fantail (about 70%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Black-headed Bunting is recorded against all the birds logged in Phnom Penh (26 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.
