Abstract
A single record of Black-headed Bunting was obtained on May 17th, 2003, at Maki Town, Niigata Prefecture, located along the Japan Sea coast of central Honshu. The bird, an adult male, represents the first confirmed record of this species for Niigata Prefecture, and the fourth record for Japan as a whole. It was found dead in a forest of Japanese black pine (Pinus thunbergii), beneath a branch on which perched a newly fledged Ural Owl (Strix uralensis). Black-headed Bunting breed along the European Mediterranean and in western Asia, and winter in India and sometimes but rarely in southern China. There is a possibility that the record may be an escaped cage bird, but as several nonconfirmed but reliable observations of this same species have also been reported from the prefecture in recent years, most likely it represents a straggler.
