Emberiza leucocephalos
Silhouette: L. Shyamal · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10%
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 Ramallah on a given day, based on 10 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 91st most-seen of the 118 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, if each day is a fresh chance.
January and February
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Pine Bunting in Ramallah on a given day, against under 5% in March to December, the lowest months. Those are among Ramallah's wettest months, with about 75 mm of rain a month against almost none in August.
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.
3rd of 4
Of the 4 cities where we can rate Pine Bunting sightings, Ramallah ranks 3rd at under 5%. The best odds are in Novosibirsk (Russia, about 10%) and Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia, under 5%).
Same genus: Emberiza
The closest relatives of the Pine Bunting that you can see in Ramallah (genus Emberiza, Old World Buntings) are Corn Bunting (about 20%) and Yellowhammer (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 Ramallah (10 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.
