Yellow Bunting

Yellow Bunting (Emberiza sulphurata) is a small East Asian bunting whose breeding male has bright yellow underparts and eyebrow, an olive back and grey-green head. 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 East Asia in open woodland and forest edge, feeds on seeds and insects and migrates south through East Asia, using scrub and cultivated habitats outside breeding. 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).