Zigolo nero

Identificazione

The cirl bunting is like a small yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella), and is around 15.5 cm (6.1 in) in length with a wing-span 22–25.5 cm (8.7–10.0 in). It has a thick seed-eater's bill. The male has a bright yellow head, with a black crown, eyestripe and throat, and a greenish breast band across its otherwise yellow underparts, and a heavily streaked brown back. The female is much more like the yellowhammer, but has a streaked grey-brown rump and chestnut shoulders.<p>The monotonous song of the cock is rattling trill, like Arctic warbler or the terminal rattle of lesser whitethroat.

Tassonomia

The cirl bunting was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1766 in the twelfth edition of his Systema Naturae under its current binomial name Emberiza cirlus. The genus name Emberiza is from Old German Embritz, a bunting. The specific cirlus is from a local Italian name cirlo, for a type of bunting, from zirlare, "to chirp". The English cirl is derived from cirlus, "probably from zirlare, to whistle as a thrush". The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.

Nome scientifico

Emberiza cirlus

Autorità

Linnaeus, 1766

Ordine

Passeriformi

Famiglia

Emberizidae

Genere

Emberiza

Areale e habitat

The ideal farmland habitat is a mixture of grass and arable fields, divided by thick hedgerows with pockets of dense scrub. They can tolerate a certain degree of urbanisation, and are found in green spaces in towns and cities, even Rome.[citation needed]<p>They are sedentary in nature and will often travel only 250 metres (820 ft) from their nests to forage in summer, and up to 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) in winter to find stubble.

Areale riproduttivo

PAL, AF : s temperate to subtropical w Palearctic scrubby woodlands: far s England, France, s Germany e through s Romania; in s to Iberian Pen. and coastal Morocco to Tunisia (nw, nc Africa), Mediterranean including Balearics, Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, Crete, and coastal w, n Turkey

Areale non riproduttivo

to nearby fields

Migrazione

Resident species

Comportamento

Cirl buntings first breed when they are one year of age. The nest is at low level, within dense cover such as that provided by thick hedgerows and scrub. The ideal scrub is said to be blackthorn, hawthorn, bramble and gorse. The breeding season runs from April until mid-September, usually having two broods but occasionally three. Two to five eggs are laid, which show the hair-like markings characteristic of buntings. They are incubated only by the female and hatch 12–13 days after the last egg is laid. The young are cared for and fed by both parents. They nestlings fledge after 11–13 days but continue to be fed by their parents for a further two or three weeks.<p>In the summer their natural food consists of invertebrates for example grasshoppers and crickets to feed their chicks. In the winter they feed on small seeds from over-wintered stubbles, fallow land, set-aside, and the over-winter feeding of stock with grain or hay. They tend to feed in flocks during the winter.

Conservazione

Tendenza della popolazione

rising