Black-faced Bunting        Emberiza spodocephala

Etymology: 

• Emberiza : Old German name Embritz for a bunting
• Spodocephala: Greek Word spodos ashes; kephalos -headed.  { Ashy headed}
• Sordida : Latin Word sordidus –shabby, dirty

 Distribution in India: winter visitor in North east India .

Description: Size of 13·5–16 cm; weight of 13–27 g. The male of nominate race in breeding has olive grey in head to breast , contrasting blackish lores and chin, nape is tinged brownish; mantle is pale brown with black streaks, centre of mantle and scapulars are darker, tinged chestnut. The back is like mantle with a few indistinct streaks, rump and uppertail-coverts are plain grey-brown. The tail is dark brown, outer rectrices are with extensive white. The lesser upperwing-coverts are grey-brown, median coverts are blackish brown with pale buffish tips, greater coverts with greyish-brown edges and light buff tips forming a second, rather weaker wingbar. The tertials are blackish with brown fringes, primaries and secondaries are dark brown, primaries are with pale edges, secondaries are with rufous edges. The underparts below the breast are pale yellow well demarcated from grey of breast. There are some rufous streaks on flanks, streaks becoming darker posteriorly. The iris is dark chestnut-brown; maxilla is blackish with whitish-horn with cutting edges, mandible is  pinkish with dark tip; legs are pinkish brown. The male in non-breeding is similar to breeding, but slight differences in colour tones: freshly moulted feathers of crown and ear-coverts are fringed chestnut, concealing to some extent general grey-olive appearance of plumage, and pale fringes of breast and throat feathers conceal general colour of these areas; breeding colour gradually appear as feather fringes increasingly are abraded. First-winter male is very similar to non-breeding, except that head pattern more like that of female because of broader browner fringes on fresh feathers, streaking on breast is less prominent than on female, iris is grey-brown.  The female breeding is similar to male breeding, but head pattern is different, with some individual variation in extent of olive-grey saturation, nape is browner, crown is streaked and dark chestnut. The female has pale lores, pale supercilium, submoustachial stripe and throat; some have olive-grey on breast. The female non-breeding and first-winter female are similar to female breeding, but with more prominent appearance of browner tones in general, first-winter female has grey-brown iris.  The juvenile is similar to first-winter female, but crown is uniformly grey-brown with some indistinct dark brown streaks, ear-coverts are uniform and darker brown, mantle and scapulars are duller, throat is finely spotted, throat and belly are tinged brown and has fine streaks on breast.

The race sordida is found in India. It resembles nominate in pattern, but green and yellow pigments are darker and richer, and facial mask of male better defined, larger and blacker.

Habitat: It breeds in shrubby and tall dense grass areas with interspersed trees along watercourses and floodplains, in mixed forest and moist coniferous forest, bushes and thickets, sparse woodland, gardens, and forest edges and clearings and avoids densely forested areas. Found up to 1300m. In winter it descends to lower areas, foothills and lowlands, in hedges and shrubby areas near running water, on edges of wooded areas and clearings, as well as on rice stubbles, crops, edges of pools and riverbeds; in gardens, urban and suburban parks, in forest undergrowth, tall grass fields, dwarf bamboo and sugarcane.

Food habits: It eats during breeding mainly adult and larval invertebrates, cicadas and other bugs, flies, ants, caterpillars, beetles and spiders. The nestling diet is similar. During migration and on wintering grounds, it eats cereal grains and variety of other seeds. It forages mostly on ground.

Breeding habits: They breed in May and Jun. They lay two broods. The nest is by female alone. The nest is made of soft dry grass, lined with hair, placed on ground or in low bush or herbs. They lay a clutch of 4–5 eggs. The incubation is done by female. The incubation period is 12–14 days. The chicks are fed by both sexes. The nestling period is 9–14 days. The nest is parasitized by Common Cuckoo