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House Buntings are small buntings. Their plumage is highly cryptic, and dimorphic, i.e. males and females are slightly different. Male House Buntings have a grey head, with darkg-grey eye-stripes and dark-grey streaking on the crown, with the rest of the head mid-grey. Only the supercilium is a lighter shade of grey. They have a small white sub-moustachial strip. The bib is mid-grey with dark-grey streaking as well, as is the neck. The front, which is separated from the bib by a sharp border, from the chest to the vent, is slightly vermiculated deep rusty-buff, with lighter buff undertail coverts. The mantle and back are uniformly red-brown; also the upperwings are quite homogenously red-brown. Only the leading edge is greyish and the primaries have dark centres. The uppertail has dark central feathers, while the outer edges are rusty-buff. Females are similar to males, but with less colour contrast on the head. Also the front is less conspicuous, with a smoother transition from grey to rusty-buff. The irises of both sexes are dark and the bill has a dark-grey upper mandible and a horn-coloured lower one. The legs and feet are greyish-orange. First-winter House Buntings resemble females.

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 House Bunting is available HERE .

House Buntings are a sedentary species found almost exclusively in north-western Africa. Their range extends from Morocco in the North to Mali in the South and eastward to Chad.

In Europe House Buntings have only started to appear. There are only a few sightings from Gibraltar and Malaga, in southern Spain, yet.

In nature House Buntings are specialists for arid habitats. However, they are very comfortable being around humans and their edifices, freely entering and nesting in houses, shops and other enclosed structures with suitable entrances, while naturally they nest in crags and on rock ledges.

We have not seen House Buntings in Europe yet. The photo shown below was taken in Morocco. All photographic information presented on this page has kindly been contributed by R. Normand.