Cinnamon-breasted Bunting (Emberiza tahapisi)

Cover image of Cinnamon-breasted Bunting by Tony Archer – Hartbeesfontein – North West

Buntings belong to the Family: EMBERIZIDAE. The buntings are a group of Old World passerine birds forming the genus Emberiza, which is the only genus in the family. The family contains 44 species. They are seed-eating birds with stubby, conical bills, comparatively long tails, and short legs. The feet are relatively large for scratching on the ground.

Identification

In Adult males, the head and neck are black with bold white stripes. The mantle, back, rump and upper tail coverts are rich, pinkish cinnamon, flecked with dark brown. The tail is dark brown with pinkish cinnamon edges to the feathers. Primaries and secondaries dark brown, fringed pinkish cinnamon, becoming increasingly cinnamon on inner wing. Coverts dark brown, edged cinnamon. Chin speckled black and white, throat sooty black. Breast, belly, flanks and undertail coverts cinnamon. Upper mandible dark horn, lower mandible yellow. Eyes brown. Legs and feet pinkish brown.

Adult females resemble males, but are generally paler and less reddish above. The crown is grey, heavily streaked in sooty black. The nape is pale cinnamon, lightly streaked sooty black. The cheeks and throat are dark grey, and the face and head stripes are off-white.

Juveniles and immatures look like adult females, but are flecked and blotched brown below.

The Cinnamon-breasted Bunting is most likely to be mistaken for the Cape Bunting (Emberiza capensis). However, the latter has a dark (not pale) bill, bright rufous wings and grey (not cinnamon) underparts. The Cape Bunting also lacks the black-and-white speckling on the throat and the white or off-white median crown stripe.

Status and Distribution

The Cinnamon-breasted Bunting is uncommon to locally very common in southern Africa.

It is widespread in Sub-Saharan Africa, from Nigeria east to Eritrea and south to South Africa. The Cinnamon-breasted Bunting is also found in the southern Arabian Peninsula and on Socotra Island. In southern Africa, it is widespread in the east and north, but absent from most of the Kalahari, the Karoo, and coastal regions of KwaZulu-Natal. In southern Mozambique, it is only present in the west.

The Cinnamon-breasted Bunting is not threatened.

Habitat

The Cinnamon-breasted Bunting favours rocky or bare places in wooded and open habitats. It is commonly found on rocky ridges, outcrops and mountainsides with scattered bushes or trees. Also almost bare rocky and stony patches in woodlands on flat or hilly terrain, and eroded stony slopes, gullies, dry watercourses, and abandoned borrow pits or quarries.

Behaviour

The Cinnamon-breasted Bunting is both a resident and a breeding migrant . Migrants arrive from November and depart again in May. There are no clear patterns to its movements. There is a known partial winter migration northward from the eastern parts of its range, with some almost certainly leaving the subregion. In Zimbabwe and northeastern South Africa, numbers increase in December, but concentrations also occur outside the breeding season. The Cinnamon-breasted Bunting is locally nomadic in the dry season. It is an occasional visitor to gardens, mainly in the wet season.

The Cinnamon-breasted Bunting is found in pairs or family groups when breeding and usually singly or in pairs at other times. They occasionally aggregate in small flocks. As with other seed-eating species, the Cinnamon-breasted Bunting needs to drink water regularly.

Forages on the ground, usually on bare patches, among rocks and on recently burnt areas. The Cinnamon-breasted Bunting eats grass seeds, forb seeds, and insects, including small beetles, and they also hawk termite alates.

The Cinnamon-breasted Bunting is a monogamous, solitary nester, but nests may be fairly close to one another. The nest is a shallow cup of grass, fine twigs and rootlets, often on a foundation of coarser twigs. The nest is untidy on the outside, but the cup is neatly lined with rootlets and fine grass. It is built entirely by the female in about 4 days. She is accompanied by the male on collecting trips. The nest is placed in a shallow scrape on the ground at the base of a grass tuft or rock. The nest is usually located on a rocky slope, earthen bank, in a crevice in a small rock face, or on open stony ground.

The Cinnamon-breasted Bunting breeds from October to June in southern Africa. 2 to 4 eggs are laid per clutch. The eggs are pale bluish-white or green, heavily, but variably marked with different shades of brown and grey. The incubation period lasts up to 14 days. Both sexes incubate the eggs, but the female does most of the incubation. Hatchlings are altricial and the nestling period takes 14 to 16 days. The nestlings are fed by both parents, mainly on seeds, but some insects, incl smalll caterpillars.

Further Resources

Species text in the first Southern African Bird Atlas Project (SABAP1), 1997.

The use of photographs by Ansie Dee Reis, Anthony Paton, Gerald Gaigher, Johan van Rooyen, Lance Robinson, Neels Putter, Phillip Nieuwoudt, Pieter Cronje, Ryan Tippett, and Tony Archer is acknowledged.

Virtual Museum (BirdPix > Search VM > By Scientific or Common Name).

Other common names: Rock Bunting, Cinnamon-breasted Rock Bunting (Alt.English); Klipstreepkoppie (Afrikaans); umDinasibula (Zulu); Bergammer, Siebenstreifenammer (German); Bruant cannelle (French); Berggors, Zevenstrepen-gors (Dutch); Escrevedeira-das-pedras (Portuguese).

List of bird species in this format is available here.

Recommended citation format: Tippett RM 2024. Cinnamon-breasted Bunting Emberiza tahapisi. Biodiversity and Development Institute. Available online at https://thebdi.org/2026/09/26/cinnamon-breasted-bunting-emberiza-tahapisi/

Bird identification, birding

Similar Species