The common reed bunting is a beautiful bird that has a black head, brown back and grey breast. It is often confused with a house sparrow as they both look very similar but live in completely opposite habitats.
Size
These buntings are quite small with a weight of only 16-25g and a wingspan of 21-28cm from wing tip to wing tip. Their overall length is 15-16.5cm which makes them very good at zig zagging through the reedbeds to hunt and hide from predators. It also makes them light enough to perch on thin reeds.
Location
Its range stretches across 3 continents: Europe, Asia and Northern Africa. Even though at the right time of year, they can be seen in a huge amount of countries but really they only breed in Eastern Europe. Britain, France,Netherlands and Belgium are some of the only countries that reed bunting live in all year round. Wetland, freshwater and the anthropogenic biome are some of the habitats that they survive in.
Population
The Reed buntings are actually doing well and are not classified as vulnerable, instead they are least concern. The European population of the buntings is around 4.8 million individuals although that number does fluctuate from year to year. Sadly like other creatures these charismatic birds are declining in Northern and Eastern Europe with main stronghold in the East.
Emberizidae Family Group
These birds are classed in the family group of Emberizidae (as described by Linnaeus in 1758 in his tenth edition of systema naturae). There are around 300 other species in this family most of which live in the Americas although there is a whole genus called Emberiza that are completely confined to the new world (Europe, Asia and Africa). They are most closely related to the Palla’s and the Japanese buntings.
Diet
Their diet mainly consists of seeds that come from all sorts of reedbed or waterside plants. Although in the breeding season they will make use of the large amounts of insects and their larvae so their summer diets are mostly invertebrates. They will usually head to damp grassland just beside rivers or reedbeds to feed on insects in the ground.
Predators
Because of the type of habitat and its range there are extremely limited predators that would be able to catch reed buntings. For adults mainly wetland birds of prey would go for them. Although for the chicks they might be preyed on by large rats when there are eggs but usually it would be a species of predatory snake.
Fun Facts
If a predator strays too close to a reed bunting or its nest it will feign an injury to distract the predator. This makes them a supposedly easy target until either the chicks are out of sight or they will lead the predator away.
