Rustic Bunting

Emberiza rustica

Siberian rarity that occasionally wanders into western Europe. Delivers messages off-script.

Population: 4.2–8.2 million mature individuals (declining, but rate of decline has slowed markedly since the 2016 assessment)
Habitat: Boreal and temperate wet forest, especially swampy lowland spruce/pine taiga mixed with birch and willow, riverside scrub, and Sphagnum bogs; also uses shrubland, wetlands and arable land, particularly in winter
Fun fact: The Rustic Bunting was uplisted to globally Vulnerable in 2016 after mass illegal trapping for the Chinese food trade drove steep population crashes along its East Asian flyway; enforcement against the trade allowed the decline rate to slow enough that it was downlisted back to Near Threatened.
Range: Breeds across the northern Palearctic from Scandinavia (Norway) across Siberia to Kamchatka; winters mainly in eastern China, Korea and Japan (central/eastern Asia), with small numbers in Kazakhstan/NW China; a rare vagrant to western Europe and to the western Aleutians in North America
Diet: Seeds and other plant matter (grasses, cereals, sedges, conifer seeds) for most of the year, switching to insects and other invertebrates (dragonflies, mayflies, caddisflies, beetles) when feeding chicks
Size: 0.14 m
Wingspan: 0.22 m
Lifespan: 6 years

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