Emberiza leucocephalos
Silhouette: L. Shyamal · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~30%
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 Ulaanbaatar on a given day, based on 8 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 57th most-seen of the 63 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 30%, if each day is a fresh chance.
March
In that month about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Pine Bunting in Ulaanbaatar on a given day, against under 5% in June, August and October–February, the lowest months. That is one of Ulaanbaatar's driest months, with about 5 mm of rain against 70 mm in July.
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.
2nd of 4
Of the 4 cities where we can rate Pine Bunting sightings, Ulaanbaatar ranks 2nd at under 5%. The best odds are in Novosibirsk (Russia, about 10%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Pine Bunting is recorded against all the birds logged in Ulaanbaatar (8 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.
