Cretzschmar's Bunting
Cretzschmar's bunting (Emberiza caesia) is a passerine bird in the bunting family Emberizidae, a group now separated by most modern authors from the finches, Fringillidae.
Hear it on xeno-canto Community recordings — opens xeno-canto →In Türkiye
Arrives in spring and leaves in autumn; winter records are almost absent.
Most records in April–June.
Provinces where it makes up the largest share of bird records.
Adjusted for how many birdwatchers are out each month; the busiest month = 100%.
2,567 records from Türkiye · #232 of 634 species by number of records. Source: GBIF.org (October 2026). All birds of Türkiye
About
The English common name commemorates the German physician and scientist Philipp Jakob Cretzschmar who founded the Senckenberg Natural History Museum. The genus name Emberiza is from Old German Embritz, a bunting. The specific caesias is from Latin caesius, "bluish-grey".
This species is monotypic.
This bird is smaller than ortolan. The breeding male has a grey head with orange moustaches. The upperparts are brown and heavily streaked, except on the rump, and the underparts are rusty orange. The stout bill is pink.
Females and young birds have a weaker head pattern, and are more similar to ortolans. They can be distinguished by the warm brown rump and white eye-ring.
Cretzschmar's bunting breeds on sunny open hillsides with some bushes. It is mainly coastal or insular, and often breeds at lower levels than the closely related ortolan bunting where both occur. It lays four to six eggs in a ground nest.
Text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
At a glance
Cretzschmar's bunting is told by its blue-grey head and rusty-orange throat, breeding on hot dry rocky Mediterranean slopes.
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