Description
This bird is 15 cm long, larger than Reed Bunting, and long-tailed. The breeding male has bright yellow underparts, chestnut upperparts and a black hood. The female is a washed-out version of the male, with paler underparts, a grey-brown back and a greyish head. The juvenile is similar but the vent is yellow, and both can be difficult to separate from the corresponding plumages of the closely related Red-headed Bunting although the Black-headed tends to have the cheeks darker than the throat. First year males have a grey crown and the back has patches of chestnut and grey. First year females can be difficult to separate from female Red-headed Buntings although having more streaking on the crown than on the lower back. The vent is yellow.
The Black-headed and Red-headed Bunting represent sister species which forms a clade along with the Crested Bunting.
Read more about this topic: Black-headed Bunting
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“Do not require a description of the countries towards which you sail. The description does not describe them to you, and to- morrow you arrive there, and know them by inhabiting them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The great object in life is Sensation—to feel that we exist, even though in pain; it is this “craving void” which drives us to gaming, to battle, to travel, to intemperate but keenly felt pursuits of every description whose principal attraction is the agitation inseparable from their accomplishment.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“A sound mind in a sound body, is a short, but full description of a happy state in this World: he that has these two, has little more to wish for; and he that wants either of them, will be little the better for anything else.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)