Yellowhammer

Voice

The song is a thin, metallic series of identical notes running into a single drawn-out high or low final note, classically rendered tsi-tsi-tsi-tsi-tsi-tsi-tseeee; heard from March well into August, including through the heat of midday. Calls: a sharp short tsik and a ringing tsyu.

Identification

Slim and long-tailed, with white outer tail feathers and a warm chestnut rump shown by no other bunting. The summer male has an almost unmarked bright yellow head and yellow underparts, with chestnut streaking on breast and flanks. The female is duller, with more dark head streaking and a less saturated yellow ground colour. Juveniles are brown and finely streaked but already show the rusty rump.

Confusion species

Cirl Bunting is the critical species in southern Europe: it has an olive-grey rump instead of chestnut, and the male shows a black throat stripe, a black eyestripe and an olive breast band. For females and immatures the rump colour always settles it. Ortolan has a yellow eyering and yellow throat against a grey-green head.

Habitat

Small-scale farmland with hedges, hedgebanks, rough verges and unfarmed corners, plus heathland with scattered birches and pines, young plantations and clear-fells. It needs song posts at bush or wire height, cover close to the ground and seed-rich rough vegetation, in winter too.

Range and movements

Breeds from Scandinavia and Britain to central Europe and the Balkans, with northern birds moving south. In the Netherlands mainly on the sandy soils of Drenthe, the Veluwe, Twente and Noord-Brabant, and scarce in the west. In Spain it is confined to the northern half, with strongholds in the Pyrenees, the Cordillera Cantábrica and the northern meseta.

• Resident
• Breeding (summer)
• Winter
• Passage
• dark = core range, pale = thinly spread

Where and when to look

Look in May and June during the hottest part of the afternoon, when other birds fall silent and the Yellowhammer sings on: walk or cycle a hedgebank and listen for that final drawn-out note. In winter search stubbles and freshly muck-spread fields, where small parties join finches and Tree Sparrows.

Conservation status

Not globally threatened (IUCN: Least Concern), but sharply reduced in western Europe through field enlargement, the loss of hedges and odd corners, and the disappearance of winter stubbles. In the Netherlands it holds on across the sandy soils while having vanished from many arable districts.