Corn Bunting

A local and uncommon breeding resident, confined to arable areas in the east of the region. 

The largest counts are of 500 at Marshfield on 7th November, 2013 and 31st October and 22nd December, 2014. 

It is rare elsewhere as a passage migrant/winter visitor, supporting notes for such records were required until 2009. 

Clearly it was more widely distributed in the past as Palmer and Ballance (1968) mention breeding season records since 1947 from Sand Bay, Failand, Stanton Prior, East Dundry and Norton St Philip; they also mention records from 1900 to 1940 from the Bath area, Weston-super-Mare, Barrow Gurney and Bleadon. Bland (1992a) documents the local decline between 1962 and 1992. 

Wheeler (1874) listed it as a ‘generally distributed resident, not common’ while Charbonnier (1899) said ‘resident, fairly common, more abundant in the Cotswolds’. The 1925 SBR said it was ‘rare, a few Weston-super-Mare district. Bleadon Hill 1925 and previously’ while Davis (1947) said ‘resident, very local being chiefly known from Marshfield, Hawkesbury Upton and other parts of the Cotswolds. Has nested on Bleadon Hill and perhaps elsewhere in coastal areas’.