Emberiza cioides

This bird is native to eastern China, North and South Korea, Japan, and eastern Siberia. Wikipedia and an "information video" on YouTube mention them as living in Kyrgystan and Mongolia, but most of my sources show them as living only in where I said they live. It is seen as having a moustache. Male Japanese variants have a black cheek instead of a brown one. While both sexes are generally brown and dull colored, the females look more "washed out" than the males, thus being both paler and duller.

## Name

Currently it seems to be called the meadow bunting, but sources show that this used to be one of the names available for the rock bunting. It may have been called the Eastern Siberian Meadow Bunting. However, those sources are specifically referencing a subspecies without referencing the names of other subspecies; this is truer for older books. Normally a nominate subspecies is the same as its species name, thus it would be *Emberiza cioides cioides*. However, there is no *Emberiza cioides cioides*, instead these sources list it with its subspecies *castaneiceps*. This is unusual to what I know. The meadow bunting seems to have been an acceptable synonym for a related bird, the rock bunting. Thus, in the past, it may have been that when people referred to the Meadow Bunting, they had meant *Emberiza cia*, and when they used "Eastern Siberian Bunting", they meant this bird, *Emberiza cioides*. This is not a matter of splitting, as some of them mention *Emberiza cia* alongside *Emberiza cioides castaneiceps* and openly compare the two. Additionally *castaneiceps* seems to have a few different common English names: Eastern Siberian Meadow Bunting, Chinese Meadow Bunting, Korean Meadow Bunting, Brown Breasted Meadow Bunting.

## Regional variants

The meadow bunting has other subspecies: *tarbagataica*, *weigoldi*, *ciopsis*, and according to one source, *ijimae*. These would be the China Meadow Bunting, Weigold's Meadow Bunting, Japanese Meadow Bunting, and Ijima's Meadow Bunting (depending on the source, as above, some names may be exchangeable). I don't know all of the differences yet, but it is apparent from Youtube videos and presented illustrations that the males of Japan (whether they be JMB or Ijima's) have a blackened cheek instead of a brown. The bird is considered moustached, but Japanese variants have an extra branch of black along both sides. I don't know how they migrate in other areas, but in Japan at least some populations of the bird migrate northwards to Hokkaido for summer, and south back to the mainland for winter. There are three variants that live in China, all south of the Yellow River.

These birds may have a small population in England. Rob Stinger, a bird fanatic of some sort, is said to have saved a wild one and nursed it back to health. He released it surrounded by other birders. Afterwords he was accused of having bought it at an event that occurred around the same time that sold exotic birds to bird lovers such as himself and then released it, a non-native bird, into the wild. He has since dismissed these allegations and rationalized the timing of events to show that he didn't do it. It seems that the rumors have marred this subculture celebrities' reputation.

Books repeatedly reference it as living non-natively in England (as the east Siberian meadow bunting), however I don't know if it's only in reference to this scandal or if there is other evidence of a thriving or struggling population there. The subspecies living there is consistently listed as *castaneiceps.*

They are accidentally found in Hong Kong, perhaps as released birds.

## In culture

In non-fiction books meant to give detailed descriptions of the birds, they are often compared to both the rock bunting, Jankowski's bunting, and Godlewski's bunting, especially for juvenile forms. In one book it said that birders often compared its songs and differentiated them between its relatives *Emberiza schoeniclus* and *Emberiza miliaria* and lower than *Emberiza aureola*. Thus to birders at least, these songs are different, but similar sounding.

As mentioned above in Regional variants, the meadow bunting was a popular exotic bird at some point in the U.K and caused quite a stir over a bird celebrity (re-)releasing one into the wild.

The meadow bunting is the prefectural bird of Chiba, Japan. It may be one of the inspirations for the pidgey line, what with its black headstripes and little crest, though many Japanese birds have both of these features. Additionally the name of pidgey in Japanese is poppo, and though its clearly a reference to pigeons, it may also be connected to the meadow bunting's Japanese name, hohojiro.

## References

1. ↑ https://books.google.com/books?id=2ctLAQAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks\_redir=0&lpg=PA126&dq=meadow%20bunting&pg=PA126#v=onepage&q=meadow%20bunting&f=false
2. ↑ https://books.google.com/books?id=7-YNAQAAMAAJ&newbks=1&newbks\_redir=0&dq=meadow%20bunting&pg=RA8-PA21#v=onepage&q=meadow%20bunting&f=false
3. ↑ https://books.google.com/books?id=zvxGAQAAMAAJ&newbks=1&newbks\_redir=0&dq=meadow%20bunting&pg=PA1009#v=onepage&q=meadow%20bunting&f=false
4. ↑ https://books.google.com/books?id=DjZEAAAAYAAJ&newbks=1&newbks\_redir=0&dq=meadow%20bunting&pg=PA124#v=onepage&q=meadow%20bunting&f=false
5. ↑ https://books.google.com/books?id=v4V1DwAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks\_redir=0&lpg=PA529&dq=meadow%20bunting&pg=PA529#v=onepage&q=meadow%20bunting&f=false
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 https://books.google.com/books?id=7-YNAQAAMAAJ&newbks=1&newbks\_redir=0&dq=meadow%20bunting&pg=RA8-PA72#v=onepage&q=meadow%20bunting&f=false
7. ↑ https://books.google.com/books?id=NaPODwAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks\_redir=0&lpg=PA484&dq=meadow%20bunting&pg=PA483#v=onepage&q=meadow%20bunting&f=false
8. ↑ https://books.google.com/books?id=Qw0mEAAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks\_redir=0&lpg=PA114&dq=meadow%20bunting&pg=PA114#v=onepage&q=meadow%20bunting&f=false
9. ↑ https://books.google.com/books?id=Qw0mEAAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks\_redir=0&lpg=PA114&dq=meadow%20bunting&pg=PA357#v=onepage&q=meadow%20bunting&f=false
10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 https://books.google.com/books?id=uwU\_EAAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks\_redir=0&lpg=PA502&dq=meadow%20bunting&pg=PA502#v=onepage&q=meadow%20bunting&f=false
11. ↑ https://books.google.com/books?id=opIdEAAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks\_redir=0&lpg=PT148&dq=meadow%20bunting&pg=PT148#v=onepage&q=meadow%20bunting&f=false
12. ↑ https://books.google.com/books?id=rj3zAAAAMAAJ&newbks=1&newbks\_redir=0&dq=meadow%20bunting&pg=PA9#v=onepage&q=meadow%20bunting&f=falsev
13. ↑ https://books.google.com/books?id=DjZEAAAAYAAJ&newbks=1&newbks\_redir=0&dq=meadow%20bunting&pg=PA4#v=onepage&q=meadow%20bunting&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=DjZEAAAAYAAJ&newbks=1&newbks\_redir=0&dq=meadow%20bunting&pg=PA120-IA1#v=onepage&q=meadow%20bunting&f=false
14. ↑ https://books.google.com/books?id=ZaXi-P-heDQC&newbks=1&newbks\_redir=0&lpg=RA2-PA522&dq=meadow%20bunting&pg=RA2-PA522#v=onepage&q=meadow%20bunting&f=false
15. ↑ https://books.google.com/books?id=9VcaAAAAYAAJ&newbks=1&newbks\_redir=0&dq=meadow%20bunting&pg=PA365#v=onepage&q=meadow%20bunting&f=false