Yellow-breasted Bunting

The yellow-breasted bunting is large and rather stocky for a bunting, 14–16 centimetres long and 17–26 grams. The breeding male has bright underparts with black flank streaks, brown upperparts, a black face and throat bar, and a pink lower mandible. The female has a heavily streaked grey-brown back and less intensely yellow underparts, with a whitish face and dark crown, eye and cheek stripes; juveniles are similar but buff below and on the face. The call is a distinctive zick and the song a clear tru-tru, tri-tri. (Wikipedia, general species account)

The nominate form breeds in boreal forests from Finland to the Bering Sea and migrates to Indochina, while ornata breeds from the Amur River to Manchuria, North Korea, Kamchatka and the Kurils. The species is migratory, wintering in Southeast Asia, India and North Korea in large flocks in cultivated areas, rice fields and grasslands, preferring to roost in rice fields. It is a rare but regular wanderer to western Europe and is subject to heavy hunting pressure in China, where most birds pass on migration. (Wikipedia, general species account)