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Little Bunting (Emberiza pusilla)

If you made a list of European buntings in order of how far north their core breeding range fell, you might be surprised to find that the Little Bunting, the smallest of the group, was third behind the large, hardy Snow Bunting and the equally hefty Lapland Bunting. That suggests that this bird with its small, sharply pointed bill is a tough customer. And so it is, eking out a living in the dwarf willow zone within the northern tundra. It is found in more scrubby habitats than the Lapland Bunting, including those with a few tall trees; but if the tree growth becomes too thick the habitat becomes unsuitable, and the Rustic Bunting takes over.

The doughty Little Bunting makes a formidable journey even to turn up in Europe. It winters in China and south-east Asia, and when it sets off after the breeding season it must first fly a long way east before finally heading down south. Perhaps not surprisingly, it tends to arrive very late on the breeding sites, often the first week of June. The Little Bunting hasn’t always undertaken this journey; its presence in Europe is recent, with the species having colonised only since the 1930s.

The Little Bunting is well known for being tame, both on migration, when it will often flock with finches and other small birds, and on the breeding sites, where it shows none of the paranoia of several other buntings. Birds can be approached quite closely as they sing their buzzy songs, throwing such effort into each phrase that they appear almost to unbalance on their perch.