Red-headed Bunting

Red-headed Bunting (Emberiza bruniceps) is a robust bunting whose breeding male has a chestnut-red head and breast, bright yellow underparts and olive-brown back. Body shape, bill structure, plumage pattern and voice provide the strongest field characters. Age, sex and season may alter its appearance, so identification should combine several features and careful direct field comparisons with similar species in the same habitat (Wikipedia, general species account).

It breeds across central Asia in open scrub and farmland, feeds on seeds and insects and migrates to India and Bangladesh; escaped cage birds complicate interpretation of records far west of its regular range. Its movements and social behaviour vary through the year, with breeding birds generally more dispersed and non-breeding birds gathering where food is concentrated. Japanese records place it within the country's documented avifauna as a resident, migrant or visitor (Wikipedia, general species account; Wildlife of Japan occurrence records).