Old World buntings | Emberizidae

Gorzen | Escribanos

In this region this Old World family turns up almost only in the far west: a few birds a year, on the islands of the Bering Sea and along the coast of Alaska, in late spring or in autumn, when they have drifted too far east on their route between northeastern Asia and southern and southeastern Asia. Characteristic is a short, conical bill with a hard knob on the palate, against which a seed is held with the tongue and stripped of its husk. The tail is fairly long and slightly forked, with white outer feathers that flash as the bird takes off. Breeding is in open country with scattered bushes: taiga edges, clearings, reed marsh and mountain meadows, in a grass nest on or just above the ground. The song is short and simple, a set phrase of a few notes repeated unchanged for minutes on end from a bush top, a reed stem or a wire. Outside the breeding season the birds feed in flocks on stubble fields and in reedbeds, and they migrate by night.