Chestnut-eared Bunting

The chestnut-eared bunting, also called the grey-headed or grey-hooded bunting, is 15–16 cm long, with plumage mostly brown with dark streaks. The genus name is from Old German for a bunting, and fucata is Latin for painted, from painting red. Its breeding range extends from the Himalaya locally across China to south-eastern Siberia, Korea and northern Japan, and northern birds migrate south to winter in southern Japan, southern China, Taiwan, north-eastern India, Bangladesh and Southeast Asia (Wikipedia, general species account).

The breeding season is variable, lasting from May to August in India. Three to six eggs, four most commonly, are laid in a cup-shaped nest at ground level or low in a bush, and incubated for 12 days. The song is a rapid twittering that begins with staccato notes and accelerates to end in a distinctive two- or three-note phrase, and the call is an explosive pzick. SoIB 2023 rates it a Moderate conservation priority, a resident and winter migrant of grassland and scrub with a Restricted range of about 32,800 km² and insufficient data on trends (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).