About Emberiza caesia Cretzschmar, 1827
This bird species, Cretzschmar's bunting (Emberiza caesia Cretzschmar, 1827), is smaller than the ortolan bunting. Breeding males have a grey head with orange moustaches, brown heavily streaked upperparts (unstreaked on the rump), rusty orange underparts, and a stout pink bill. Females and young birds have a less distinct head pattern and look much more similar to ortolans. They can be told apart from ortolans by their warm brown rump and white eye-ring. Cretzschmar's bunting breeds on sunny open hillsides with scattered bushes. It is found mainly in coastal or island areas, and where it occurs alongside the closely related ortolan bunting, it often breeds at lower elevations. It builds a ground nest and lays four to six eggs. Its natural diet includes seeds, and it feeds insects to its young. This species breeds in Greece, Turkey, Cyprus and the Levant. It is migratory, wintering in Sudan and northern Eritrea, and is a very rare wanderer to western Europe. It forages almost entirely on the ground, eating small seeds (especially grass seeds) and supplementing its diet with small invertebrates, particularly ants.
