Profile
In flight
Songbirds
Rock Bunting
Emberiza cia
- uncommon
- 40 km/h
- Least Concern
Lives on sun-baked Mediterranean hillsides among the boulders. Your message arrives warm.
- Population
- IUCN/BirdLife global estimate (2018 assessment): roughly 9.7-21.5 million mature individuals, with a stable overall population trend; extremely large range. (European breeding population alone is separately estimated at over 1.3 million pairs.)
- Habitat
- Sunny, semi-arid open ground and rocky or scrubby slopes — dry mountainous hillsides, stony terrain with sparse shrub cover, vineyard terraces, and mountain villages/gardens, from lowlands up to roughly 1,900-4,000 m elevation (higher in the Himalayas).
- Fun fact
- Ringing recoveries show a large gap between typical and maximum Rock Bunting lifespans: mean longevity is only about 2.1 years, but the oldest recorded wild individuals have reached roughly 8.4 years.
- Range
- Southwestern and south-central Eurasia: from Morocco/northwestern Africa and Iberia across southern Europe (north to the Vosges/Alps and locally central Europe), the Mediterranean basin and Caucasus, through the Middle East and Central Asia to the Himalayas and western China/Mongolia; northern and high-altitude populations move to lower elevations or further south in winter, with the species a rare vagrant to northwestern Europe.
- Diet
- Seasonally shifting omnivore/granivore: mainly insects and their larvae (caterpillars, grasshoppers, butterflies) plus other invertebrates (spiders, small molluscs, earthworms) during the breeding season to feed young; predominantly seeds of grasses, cereals and other plants gleaned from the ground in autumn and winter.
- Size
- 0.16 m
- Wingspan
- 0.24 m
- Lifespan
- 8 years
