Scientific name: Emberiza hortulana Linnaeus, 1758
Bird group: Buntings
Field characters. 16.5 cm. Male with unstreaked greyish-olive head and breast, pale yellow throat and moustachial stripe and pinkish-brown unstreaked underparts. Upperparts brown with black streaks. Female similar but duller and sometimes slightly streaked on breast. Both sexes have obvious whitish eye-ring, white in outer tail feathers, and buff or olive rump. Juvenile without yellow; has a conspicuous pale eye-ring, pale chin and throat, unstreaked pinkish belly and streaked breast and flanks. Rather shy and secretive. Almost never in large numbers and often found alone or in small flocks.
Voice. Calls 'teu' and 'tsip'. Song simple, 'tee tee tee tuu tuuuu', somewhat resembling Yellowhammer.
Distribution. Locally common summer visitor, but declining in many parts of Europe.
Habitat. Open areas with hedges and scattered trees, near cultivated fields with crops and weeds, often on moist ground. In Scandinavia also in recent forest clearings.
Food. Seeds, but during breeding season chiefly invertebrates. Feeds on the ground.