Emberiza cineracea Brehm, 1855 ♂
Common names: Cinereous bunting [En], Bruant cendré [Fr], Smyrnagors [Nl], Türkenammer [De], Zigolo cenerino [It], Escribano Cinéreo [Es], Σμυρνοπιτίλλα, Σμυρνοτσίχλονο [Gr], Boz Çinte, Boz Kirazkuşu [Tu]
IUCN Status: NT (Near Threatened)
Moni Ypsilou, LESVOS ● Greece
Description: The cinereous bunting is a large (16–17 cm), slim bunting with a long, white-cornered tail. The term cinereous describes its colouration. It is less streaked than many buntings and has a thick pale bill. It has a greyish back with only subdued dark markings, and a browner tint to the wings.
The adult male's head is dull yellow, with a brighter moustachial line and throat. In the nominate race of south-west Turkey, the rest of the underparts are grey, but the eastern form E. c. semenowi has yellow underparts.
Females are brownish grey above with a whitish throat and yellow only in the moustachial stripe. Young birds have a plain pale belly and streaking on the breast.
Biology: Like other buntings, the cinereous bunting feeds principally on seeds. It takes insects especially when feeding its young. Its normal clutch is three eggs.
Habitat: The species breeds on dry rocky slopes and uplands with shrubby vegetation and sometimes conifers. It is migratory, wintering in dry open country with short grass, semi-desert, low rocky hills, bare cultivated land and dry scrub, often in coastal areas. Migrating birds are regularly recorded in lowland agricultural land and semi-deserts.
Distribution: It breeds in southern Turkey and southern Iran, and winters around the Red Sea in north-east Africa and Yemen. A few isolated populations just about maintain a foothold within European borders, on islands in the Aegean Sea ( Skyros, Lesbos and Chios).
Wikipedia, Cinereous bunting
BirdLife International, 2017. Emberiza cineracea, The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.