Gelbbrustammer

Bestimmung

The yellow-breasted bunting is a small passerine, ranging from 14 to 16 cm (5.5 to 6.3 in) in length, and weighing 17 to 26 g (0.6 to 0.9 oz). For a bunting, it is large and rather stocky.<p>The breeding male has bright white underparts with black flank streaks, brown upperparts, black face and throat bar, and a pink lower mandible. The female has a heavily streaked grey-brown back, and less intensely yellow underparts. She has a whitish face with dark crown, eye and cheek stripes. The juvenile is similar, but the background colour of the underparts and face is buff.[citation needed]

Taxonomie

Wissenschaftlicher Name

Emberiza aureola

Autorität

Pallas, 1773

Ordnung

Passeriformes

Familie

Emberizidae

Gattung

Emberiza

Verbreitung und Lebensraum

Emberiza aureola aureola breeds in boreal forests of Finland to Bering Sea migrating to Indochina. Emberiza aureola ornata breeds from the Amur River to Manchuria, N Korea, Kamchatka and Kuril Islands. It is migratory, wintering in south-east Asia, India, and North Korea. It is a rare but regular wanderer to western Europe. There are also ~4 records from the Aleutian Islands of Alaska and a 2017 record from Labrador, Canada. The species winters in large flocks in cultivated areas, rice fields and grasslands, preferring to roost in rice-fields.

Brutgebiet

PAL : subarctic to n temperate Palearctic bushy areas: Murmansk (far nw Russia; formerly e Finland) e to s Chukotka, Kamchatka, Kuril and Commander is., Sakhalin (e Russia); in s to far n Kazakhstan, far n Xinjiang (nw China), n, c Mongolia, n Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang (ne China) and far n Hokkaido (n Japan)

Überwinterungsgebiet

subtropical e Asian fields: sub-Himalayan zone from c Nepal e through se Asia (except s Malay Pen.) and se China

Zugverhalten

Complete migrants

Schutzstatus

Populations have declined precipitously since the early 2000s, and the species is now considered to be critically endangered. The decline of the yellow-breasted bunting is likely to be caused by substantial trapping during migration and most specifically at winter sites. Birds are flushed then caught in mist-nets, to be sold for consumption as "sparrows" or "rice birds". Even though the actions have been restricted to a small area in southern China, it has become more widespread and popular to increasing wealth, and hunters now travel long distances to find sufficient birds.

Bestandstrend

declining