Habitat
Breeds in wet meadows with tall vegetation and scattered scrub, riverside thickets and secondary scrub. Winters in large flocks in cultivated areas, rice fields and grasslands, preferring scrubby dry-water rice fields for foraging and reedbeds for roosting.
Bangladesh, Cambodia, China (mainland), Finland (B), Hong Kong (China), India, Japan, Kazakhstan (B), Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia (B), Myanmar, Nepal, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia (Asian) (B), Russia (Central Asian) (B), Russia (European) (B), Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan (China), Thailand, Vietnam.
Vagrant to Bahrain, Belgium, Brunei Darussalam, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Iran [Islamic Republic of], Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Latvia (B), Malta, Netherlands Antilles, Norway, Oman, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, USA.
Population
Estimated population is 120,000 - 1,000,000 (2010) and decreasing.
Status CR
Reduction in habitat quality on the breeding grounds in parts of its range, particularly drying of meadows, and trapping for trade, are the main threats.
For more information see BirdLife International Species Factsheet.
Yellow-breasted Bunting (Emberiza aureola) [XC486307]
by Stanislas Wroza from , Russian Federation (call)
Yellow-breasted Bunting (Emberiza aureola) [XC486310]
by Stanislas Wroza from , Russian Federation (call)
Subspecies
Sometimes placed in a separate genus, Ocyris. Recent phylogenetic study suggests that this species is closely related to Little Bunting (Emberiza pusilla), Rustic Bunting (Emberiza rustica), Chestnut Bunting (Emberiza rutila), Yellow Bunting (Emberiza sulphurata) and Black-faced Bunting (Emberiza spodocephala), forming a subclade with them. It has been suggested that they form a polytomous group of species, probably the result of a rapid, "simultaneous" radiation.
The following 2 subspecies are recognised:
aureola Pallas, 1773 - Breeds eastern Finland and western Russia east to Kamchatka, south to northern Ukraine, northern Kazakhstan and western and central Mongolia. Winters in southern and south-eastern Asia.
ornata Shulpin, 1928 - Breeds eastern Transbaikalia and north-eastern Mongolia east to north-eastern China (Heilongjiang), Sea of Okhotsk coast, Sakhalin I, and northern Japan and Kuril Is. Winters in southern China.
BirdLife International Species Factsheet