Grey Bunting

Grey Bunting (Emberiza variabilis) is a dark, secretive bunting; males are largely slate-grey while females are brown-grey with subdued streaking. 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 boreal and temperate forest in southern Kamchatka, Sakhalin, the Kurils and northern East Asia, feeds on seeds and insects in dense cover and migrates to southern East Asia and the Nansei Islands. 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).