Black-faced Bunting (BBRC)

Black-faced Bunting Emberiza spodocephala

Vagrant. Asia 

Black-faced Buntings are widely distributed across Asia. They breed in dense shrubs and damp deciduous forests in the East Palearctic. They are usually first detected by the male’s low-pitched and simple-sounding song. Most individuals move south for the winter when the species is quite abundant across a wide range of more open habitats in eastern and southern China, Taiwan, northern Indochina to the south, and in Nepal to the far west. Breeding males have a grey head and breast, rich brown upperparts with broad black streaking, and whitish or yellow underparts (becoming more saturated yellow the further east they are found). In non-breeding and juvenile plumages they superficially resemble a number of other bunting species. However, their very streaky appearance and comparatively slight bill is unlike sympatric congeners. Recently, the sub-species E. s. personata, from Japan and adjacent Sakhalin, was split from Black-faced Bunting as Emberiza personata, Masked Bunting split based on mitochondrial DNA divergence in combination with diagnostic plumage differences in males and is rather distinctive in plumage (with extensive, and streaked, bright yellow underparts), and recent genetic studies have supported this stance. 

Finder's report: Black-faced Bunting, Emberiza spodocephala: first county record, Oct 25th-29th 2024

by Graham Catley

Having always been more inspired by trying to find birds than looking at other people’s Lincolnshire has been a good location for me and in the course of my 56 years’ birding forays I have managed to find 12 new birds for the county and a total of 303 self-found species but in recent times things had rather dried up on the bird finding stakes and adding another species to the county list seemed rather unlikely given that many of the obvious gaps had already been filled. A total knee replacement in mid-August 2023 at least gave me an excuse for finding nothing during the rest of the autumn but spring 2024 was dire and I estimated I had walked 500 miles and not found a single scarce migrant. Early autumn was no better and in a lighter moment I even put out a joke Tweet suggesting that I was due a big find in the autumn

https://x.com/GPCbirding/status/1825087577679937739. That would be some prediction.

As we all know September is a month of constant westerlies with no east coast potential so a two-week trip to Western Canada, postponed twice already, seemed a safe bet but pre-departure weather maps showing highs all the way to Eastern Siberia were a little worrying. Trying to avoid looking at bird news while I was away sadly failed and I had clearly missed the fall of the autumn – what had I missed in Lincs? Back in early October a local walk turned up a pair of Snow Geese with the Humber Pink-feet https://www.grahamcatley.com/blog-1/twosnowgeeseonthehumber birds with the best credentials of any I had seen in the county but the weather pattern for the next two weeks looked decidedly uninspiring and after daily early morning rounds of Waters’ Edge in search of a Yellow-browed Warbler someone else found one in the viewing area while I was 400m away! It seemed the birding gods had turned against me again. Looking at the wind predictions for the next few days on windy.com on 23rd it looked as if a light south-easterly on 25th could maybe, just maybe produce a few birds. A decision was made, and I headed to Donna Nook for what may be a last chance saloon for the autumn. The coastal strip between Ponderosa and Pye’s Hall had been good to me over the years since I started working it in the late 80’s with my best days migration on October 18th 1990 being written up in the December 1992 issue of Birdwatch Magazine. Other notable rare finds included Central Asian Lesser Whitethroat, Siberian and Stejneger’s Stonechats, three Pallas’s Warblers in a day and then of course the nearly finds like the Little Bunting that I was on the wrong side of the dunes when Chris and Neil found it and two skulking Locustella warblers one on October 29th that must surely have been a goody. Talking of Little Bunting my list of 334 British self-found species did not include a single bunting but I did find the second Little Bunting for Cyprus! With the Environment Agency destruction of the Pye’s Hall migrant trap and the progressive death of the dune scrub and trees the Stonebridge to Pye’s sector had clearly less potential to hold migrants but with a couple of Red-backed Shrikes, Barred Warblers and while I was away Siberian Stonechat and Red-breasted Flycatcher the locale still had pulling power.

Driving down to Donna on the 25th it was foggy all the way with light drizzle and the last approach produced a few thrushes in the roadside hedges always a positive sign, but the car park bushes were not jumping with migrants. The weather remained damp and foggy, so I only took my 100-500 lens and set off towards Pye’s.

A few Redwings and Song Thrushes in the bushes with a couple of ticking Robins were scant reward as I approached the dell on the inland side of the dunes. A gang of Reed Buntings, standard Stonebridge-Pye’s fodder, were flighting between the dell and the saltmarsh then at about 09:45 I heard a thin tsic call coming from out on the edge of the saltmarsh. It seemed unfamiliar but was clearly not the tic of a Little or Rustic Bunting. Could it be just a Song Thrush or an odd Robin call? The fog was a little less dense but there was still a light drizzle and visibility was not good. I decided to walk out into the saltmarsh just to be sure the call was coming from something common. Reed Buntings kept getting up from the tide wrack just beyond a small clump of sea buckthorn and conveniently perching in full view. The call had gone, and I was almost about to give up looking when what appeared to be a Reed Bunting got up and perched with its back to me about 10m away. It looked unremarkable but kept fanning its tail revealing large amounts of white on the two outermost feathers then it leant forward and dropped down. Other birds, Dunnocks, Wrens and the odd Chaffinch were still getting up and I moved to scanning them when the bird I had been watching suddenly flew out and called the tsic call as it headed for the large hawthorns in the dell – IDIOT, why did I not look closer at it when it was in view? I suppose because it looked quite like a Reed Bunting, and I had forgotten just how similar first-winter Black-faced Bunting can be to them, but this was surely just an odd Reed Bunting, and was the call was from another bird?. Not wanting to flush it again I scanned the hawthorns in the dell from a distance and eventually saw it climbing up through one tall hawthorn. In the fog it looked as unremarkable as before but then it turned to face me and a striking pale sub-moustachial stripe and chin – throat with a pale pink lower mandible said this is no Reed Bunting but it cannot be a Black-faced Bunting! The rest of the underparts were creamy with the most prominent dark streaks on the rear flanks and the legs pale fleshy pink. It turned side on and the head pattern with just a faint paler supercilium and grey shawl were visible while the upperparts lacked any pale tram lines shown by most Reed Buntings and looked more Dunnock like. I scrambled for the camera and managed to take a few images through the fog before it flew into the other end of the dell. I managed a few further brief views in the hawthorns but when it landed on the track all the birds flushed before I could creep round the reeds to view them. Then it showed one more time in the big hawthorn and I lost it. Two birds flew out and across the saltmarsh towards the inundation channel, but I wasn’t sure if it was one of them. I spent the next hour desperately trying to re find it but failed to see or hear anything and then I eventually dared to look at the miniscule pictures on the back of camera. The first ones had its head turned away and were distinctly soft then there was a side-on shot that looked to be almost in focus! And then there was one showing the head – on view. It looked good but I was still doubting myself and needed some confirmation. A quick look at Birdguides showed a scatter of Yellow-browed Warblers on the East coast but nothing major not even at Spurn – how could I have the only eastern mega? Another search of all the Reed Bunting hot spots revealed a fall of Dunnocks, 20+ in total, Wrens and at least 40-50 Reed Buntings but no sign of the Black-faced. At this point I realised two things my phone was nearly flat and the latest Collin’s App only has an image of an adult male, Black-faced Bunting. I took two BOC shots of my dire images and WhatsApped them to a few people in the county. Asking James Siddle if I was making a big up cock his immediate response from Scilly was No! but apart from Neil Drinkall who identified it no-one else responded and I assume they wondered why I was sending them pictures of a Reed Bunting! The bird had disappeared at around 10:15 and understandably only a couple of people made the effort to come and join the search, but I stuck at it for another six hours before giving up and heading home to check references on ID.

Looking at the new Handbook of European Birds by Nils van Duivendijk there was an image of a first winter that was even less marked than my bird, but all the features were supportive, and other texts mentioned the call and the tail fanning habit. Happy that this was indeed a Black-faced Bunting I put a message on the Lincs Rare bird WhatsApp group that night but pointed out the negative search details.

On the following morning, Saturday 26th a small group of birders gathered in the area where the bird was last seen but in spite of there being good numbers of Reed Buntings present there was no sign of the bunting in question by 09:46 when I received a call from Owen Beaumont informing me that he had re found the bird with a small group of Reed Buntings and it had been trapped at the regular ringing site at Quad three! This was somewhat staggering as the ringing site was, as the bunting flies in a direct line not using the coastal route, 3.85kms or 2.4 miles from where it was last seen. Surely there were not two! Owen kindly brought the bird round to Stonebridge as we assembled all the searchers present and it was briefly photographed before being released into the hawthorn by the car park emitting a rather loud series of hard tsic call notes, somewhat more agitated sounding than the calls heard the previous day. It preened briefly in the hawthorn before flying out and across the road and into more impenetrable scrub south of the car park. In spite of my views being less than optimal on the previous day it did not show any obviously different features and the assumption had to be made that it was indeed the same bird particularly given the species rarity in a British context although news of a third bird for the autumn trapped in Pembrokeshire the same morning does raise the question has there been a major movement of this species into western Europe this autumn?

After a brief fly over claim on the Sunday 27th James Siddle, Kev Wilson and a number of other observers searched for the bird on the 28th but to no avail. I had an inkling though, given its skulking nature that it might just still be in the area so I headed back to Donna on 29th and as I approached the clump of dead bushes near Pye’s Hall it suddenly got up from the tide wrack and perched briefly in a dead willow but for once my camera failed to focus on it and it then flew up into the dunes into impenetrable buckthorn scrub. I rang Chris Atkin who had not seen the bird in the hope that he was nearby, and he quickly came up from Saltfleet Haven to assist in relocating the bunting. With Chris’s much younger ears he was soon picking it up on call when I was struggling but it got no easier to see flying out to feed on the tide Wrack in the realignment but refusing to show on the ground and always flushing back into the buckthorn and elder scrub on the dunes where it typically called regularly but was usually invisible. At one point it did perch a couple of times in a tall hawthorn, and I got some slightly better images at one stage next to a Reed Bunting, but it remained skittish and would often disappear for long spells only to appear again in the same area or fly over calling. In the afternoon Liam Andrews and Dean Nicholson also joined us and saw the bird but as far as we know this was the last time it was seen.

All of the plumage features are shown best in the in-hand shots I took after Owen Beaumont trapped the bird but most can also be seen in my rather poor-quality field shots.

So, persistence pays and the bird finding gods do eventually reward. My 13th addition to the Lincolnshire list – will there be a 14th? At last, a rare bunting and being the 12th for Britain a major one – maybe now I can find some more regular rare buntings.

References

AviList: the global avian checklist. https://www.avilist.org/

Kirwan, G. M., J.L. Copete, C. Hansasuta, and P. F. D. Boesman (2022). Black-faced Bunting (Emberiza spodocephala), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (N. D. Sly, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.bkfbun1.01

(Article added August 2025))