Corn Bunting Miliaria calandra

The Corn Bunting, Miliaria calandra, is a large, heavyset bunting belonging to the family Emberizidae, and one of Britain’s most emblematic farmland birds. Streaked brown and rather nondescript in appearance, it lacks the bold markings of many of its relatives, but more than compensates with its extraordinary song – a loud, jangling, almost mechanical rattling phrase, often likened to the sound of jangling keys, delivered persistently from a prominent perch such as a fence post, telegraph wire, or tall weed stem. A bird of open arable farmland and rough grassland, it is entirely dependent on traditionally managed agricultural landscapes offering a mosaic of cereal crops, weedy margins, and insect-rich foraging habitat. The Corn Bunting has suffered one of the most severe declines of any British farmland bird, disappearing from large parts of its former range due to agricultural intensification, and is a Red List species of high conservation concern. Image: © Neil Rolph, Flickr.

Find out more: RSPB, Suffolk Wildlife Trust, iNaturalist