Black-headed Bunting Emberiza melanocephala 黑頭鵐
Category I. Scarce passage migrant in autumn and rare winter visitor and passage migrant in spring. Occurs in open country habitats, particularly rice fields at Long Valley.
IDENTIFICATION
Nov. 2017, Matthew Kwan. First-winter.
15.5 – 17 cm. Large, unstreaked and pale (in non-adult male plumage) bunting lacking white in the tail and with large head and bill and pale yellow undertail coverts. Females and immatures closely resemble Red-headed Bunting but have more distinct crown streaking, less distinct mantle streaks and a longer and stronger bill; some birds have yellow on belly and vent and a rufous tinge to the mantle, while other may retain juvenile streaks on the chest.
Dec. 2013, Martin Hale. Male.
The male in winter has the black head and maroon upperparts largely obscured by brown feather tips, and wholly yellowish underparts.
VOCALISATIONS
A more diverse vocabulary than most other buntings in HK, the following recording provides three typical examples: a rolling nearly disyllabic and downslurred ‘chirrip’, a short, hollow whistle and a ‘plik’
DISTRIBUTION & HABITAT PREFERENCE
The favoured site by far is Long Valley, where it shows a preference for foraging in rice paddy, though it also occurs in the weedy fallow fields; intensive observer coverage is also a factor in the concentration of records at this site. It also occurs on the banks of commercial fish ponds, as well as other open-country sites across HK, including the migrant traps of Po Toi, Ho Man Tin and the summit of Mount Davis.
OCCURRENCE
The first accepted record of Black-headed Bunting occurred at Lut Chau on 27 October 1995 (Leader 1996), which was swiftly followed by another trapped near Mai Po on 8 November that remained until the 12th. Figure 1 illustrates the pattern of occurrence since then and indicates that it occurs mainly in autumn from the first week of October to the first week of December, with the peak period being the last week of October and the first week of November.
There appears to be a minor peak of birds around the turn of the year, though it is unknown if this is real. Wintering birds appear to depart by mid-February, while a very weak passage occurs from the third week of March to the third week of April. Extreme dates are 4 October 2013 and 20 April 2017. Mostly one or two birds are recorded, with the highest count being five at Lam Tsuen on 30 December 2010.
BEHAVIOUR, FORAGING & DIET
Perches prominently on wires and trees. Forages on rice in paddy fields and on weedy or patchy grassy areas.
RANGE & SYSTEMATICS
Monotypic. Breeds southeast Europe east from Italy and the Balkans through Caspian and Black Sea areas as far Iran; winters in west India (Copete 2020). In China there are scattered records across the country excluding the northeast, and mostly in the southeast (Liu and Chen 2020). It appears that small numbers in autumn regularly overshoot the wintering grounds in India and reach south China. This was initially suggested by birds obtained in September 1913 and November 1915 in Fujian by La Touche (1925-30).
CONSERVATION STATUS
IUCN: Least Concern. Population trend unknown.
Figure 1.
Copete, J. L. (2020). Black-headed Bunting (Emberiza melanocephala), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.blhbun1.01
La Touche, J. D. D. (1925-30). Handbook of the birds of Eastern China Vol. 1. Taylor and Francis, London.
Leader, P. J. (1996). Black-headed Bunting: the first records for Hong Kong. Hong Kong Bird Report 1995: 129-133.
Liu, Y. and Y. H. Chen (eds) (2020). The CNG Field Guide to the Birds of China (in Chinese). Hunan Science and Technology Publication House, Changsha.
