Little Bunting

The little bunting is a small bunting, only 12–14 centimetres long. It has white underparts with dark streaking on the breast and sides. With its chestnut face and white malar stripe it resembles a small female reed bunting, but it has black crown stripes, a white eye-ring and a fine dark border to the rear of its chestnut cheeks. The call is a distinctive zik, and the song is a rolling siroo-sir-sir-siroo. (Wikipedia, general species account)

It breeds across the taiga of the far north-east of Europe and northern Eurosiberia to the Russian Far East. It is migratory, wintering in the subtropics of northern India, southern China and the northern parts of Southeast Asia, and remains on its winter grounds quite late; specimens were taken in Yunnan in late March. The species is adaptable: in the mountains of Bhutan, where small numbers winter, it is typically found in agricultural habitat between 1,000 and 2,000 metres. (Wikipedia, general species account)