More elongated, sharper-faced than finches, the Yellowhammer is a slim, long-tailed bunting, often found in small groups and mixed with finches and sparrows outside the breeding season.

Few birds call in the heat of the afternoon on a summer’s day, but the Yellowhammer sings his cheerful, repetitive song all day long, all summer through. A typical bunting, its long body, slender white-edged tail and flat-topped head – with a thin upper mandible and more bulbous lower one – distinguish it from all the finches and sparrows. Yellowhammers are characteristic birds of heathland with bushes and open grassy spaces, farmland with hedgerows between pastures, and grassy strips with mixed gorse bushes and bracken above coastal cliffs. In farmland areas they have declined with the loss of hedgerows, and especially the loss of winter food: stubble fields and stackyards are now rare, and seed-eating birds like the Yellowhammer are suffering as a result.