Chestnut Bunting

Chestnut Bunting (Emberiza rutila) is a small East Asian bunting whose breeding male has rich chestnut head and upperparts with bright yellow underparts, while females are duller and streaked. Body shape, bill structure, plumage pattern and voice provide the strongest field characters. Age, sex and season may alter its appearance, so identification should combine several features and careful direct field comparisons with similar species in the same habitat (Wikipedia, general species account).

It breeds in the East Palearctic in open forest and scrub, takes seeds and insects on or near the ground and migrates south to warmer parts of Asia outside the breeding season. Its movements and social behaviour vary through the year, with breeding birds generally more dispersed and non-breeding birds gathering where food is concentrated. The Korean vertebrate catalogue used for this guide records the species in South Korea (Wikipedia, general species account; Wildlife of Korea occurrence records).