Corn Bunting Call MP3s
The Corn Bunting's dry, jangling song, often compared to a bunch of rattling keys, makes it one of the easier farmland buntings to pick out by ear alone.
Also known as
Recordings (4)
About this species
A passerine songbird measuring roughly 18 cm, the Corn Bunting (Emberiza calandra) is unmistakable — large, dull and streaky brown, the heaviest of the European buntings. It sings over wide open arable land and rough pasture.
Its dry, jangling song, like a bunch of shaken keys, is delivered from a wire or bush-top. It takes small seeds and aquatic invertebrates sieved from the surface and shallow mud. The male sings tirelessly from a wire, post or bush-top throughout the breeding season. From breeding grounds across Europe to Mediterranean and African wintering areas, its seasonal journeys mark the turning year.
Legal use
The Corn Bunting occupies open farmland from western Europe and North Africa across to northwestern China and is protected as a wild, non-quarry species under the EU Birds Directive, the UK Wildlife and Countryside Act, and the Bern Convention throughout that range. It has suffered steep population declines tied to farming intensification, particularly from the mid-1970s to mid-1980s with local extinctions in parts of its former range, and it has been Red-listed for conservation concern in the UK since 1996. We are not aware of any jurisdiction where it is legally hunted. Use of this recording should be limited to identification and survey purposes; see our full country-by-country disclaimer for specifics.