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Black-headed Buntings are medium-sized buntings. Their plumage is dimorphic, i.e. males and females are slightly different. Both male and female Black-headed Buntings have different plumages during the breeding season and in eclipse. Breeding males have a bright yellow throat, neck and chest, possibly with some grey tints further down their front and flanks. The head (frons, crown and cheeks) is black. The mantle, shoulders, back and rump are greyish-brown, while the upperwings, apart from a greyish-brown shoulder patch, are dark-grey to black with off-white edges on the flight feathers. Breeding females look like duller-coloured males, with a greyish streaked head, rather than black, a paler-yellow front and also a paler shade of brownish grey on the back. Adults in eclipse have more cryptic plumage, basically without any yellow, which is replaced by a dull olive-grey front. Both sexes have dark irises, a strong grey, triangular bill and pinkish-grey legs and feet. First-winter Black-headed Buntings resemble adults in eclipse.

The overall distribution of this species can be assessed, and specific locations where birds have been spotted can be found, based on individual sighting reports submitted by birdwatchers to ebird.org .

The global distribution of the Black-headed Bunting is available HERE .

Black-headed Buntings are a migratory species that breeds in south-eastern Europe, Asia Minor, between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea and in south-western Asia, from the Caucasus mountain range from northern Iraq through central Iran to the border with Afghanistan. They spend the winters in the western half of India (except the northernmost and southernmost areas of that part of the subcontinent).

In Europe Black-headed Buntings are found only during the breeding season, in an area ranging from the eastern Adriatic coastline through the Balkans and Greece and to the North of the Caucasus mountains, up to the southernmost parts of European Russia.

Black-headed Buntings have a preference for open grassland, possibly with some shrubs when nesting. Especially outside the breeding season they flock to feed on seeds on the ground, in areas with little cover for potential predators.

S. Cuturilov reports spotting Black-headed Buntings near Boljevac, Eastern Serbia, in May 2016. Another was found by A. Sarok south of Belgrade, Serbia, in the timeframe 2010-2024.