Birdwatching - 2154 🐦

🦉 The yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella)

• Emberiza embritz (Old German) bunting
• citrinella citrine (lat.) yellow; citrinella (Italian) yellow bird

These birds in my region do not look as beautiful as they are depicted in encyclopedias. They look, I would say, somewhat dirty and careless, due to various black and brown spots. Moreover, hybrids of various species and subspecies occur.

These birds feed on plant foods, seeds, nuts, grains. In the old days, when there were no cars, these birds would sneak into stables and eat oats from horses, for which they were called "oatmeal".
However, during the breeding season, in addition to plant food, they also eat insects, as you can see in my photos.