Belongs within: Emberizidae.
The reed bunting Emberiza schoeniclus is a widespread passerine species across the Holarctic realm.
Characters (Rising et al. 2011): Small to medium-sized or rather large bunting, variable both in body size and in bill size. Male nominate race breeding with blackish head and throat, prominent white submoustachial stripe and white hindneck-collar meeting on lower neck side; mantle grey-brown mixed with rufous and heavily streaked blackish, scapulars blackish with rufous feather edges, back and rump greyish with dark streaks, uppertail-coverts browner; tail blackish-brown, central feather pair paler, outermost pair with extensive white, adjacent pair with smaller white area; lesser upperwing-coverts red-brown, median and greater coverts blackish-brown with rufous-brown tips, light-feathers blackish-brown, tertials with rufous edges, primaries and secondaries with narrow pale buffish edges, edges on secondaries brighter and more rufous; underparts dirty white, variable indistinct streaking on side of breast and flanks; iris dark chestnut-brown; bill relatively small, culmen almost straight, blackish; legs brown. Male non-breeding with head pattern largely obscured by grey-brown fringes of new feathers, buffish supercilium, pale brown lores and ear-coverts, darker brown eye-stripe, moustachial stripe and rear edge of ear-coverts, also submoustachial stripe present but not so cleanly white, chin buffish, black malar stripe, throat whitish; nape grey-brown (giving hint of pattern to be acquired during breeding), upperparts, wing and tail much as when breeding, but upperparts somewhat paler; underparts whitish, breast and flanks tinged yellow-buff and streaked brownish; lower mandible blue-grey. First-winter male almost identical to male non-breeding; iris dark grey-brown. Female breeding rather similar to male non-breeding, but nape pale grey-brown to whitish; malar stripe prominent, broader at base than on male non-breeding, breast and flanks distinctly streaked dark, bill blackish. Female non-breeding and first-winter female very like male in corresponding plumages, except for subtle differences in pattern of crown feathers. Juvenile resembling female, but with chestnut crown with abundance of dark streaks, broader blackish malar stripe, yellowish-buff upperparts streaked and spotted dark, breast heavily streaked and belly and flanks spotted; iris dark grey-brown.
<==Emberiza schoeniclus (Linnaeus 1758)RJ11 (see below for synonymy)
|--E. s. schoeniclus [incl. E. s. goplanae, E. s. mackenziei, E. s. turonensis]RJ11
|--E. s. caspia Ménétriés 1832RJ11
|--E. s. centralasiae Hartert 1904RJ11
|--E. s. harterti Sushkin 1906RJ11
|--E. s. incognita (Zarudny 1917)RJ11
|--E. s. intermedia Degland 1849RJ11
|--E. s. korejewi (Zarudny 1907)RJ11
|--E. s. lusitanica Steinbacher 1930RJ11
|--E. s. minor Middendorff 1853 [=E. pallasi minor]RJ11
|--E. s. pallidior Hartert 1904RJ11
|--E. s. parvirostris Buturlin 1910 [incl. E. s. pallidissima]RJ11
|--E. s. passerina Pallas 1771RJ11
|--E. s. pyrrhulina (Swinhoe 1876)RJ11
|--E. s. pyrrhuloides Pallas 1811RJ11
|--E. s. reiseri Hartert 1904RJ11
|--E. s. stresemanni Steinbacher 1930RJ11
|--E. s. tschusii Reiser & Almásy 1898RJ11
|--E. s. ukrainae (Zarudny 1917)RJ11
|--E. s. witherbyi von Jordans 1923RJ11
`--E. s. zaidamensis Portenko 1929RJ11
Emberiza schoeniclus (Linnaeus 1758)RJ11 [=Fringilla schoeniclusRJ11, E. schoeniculus (l. c.)CC10, Schoeniclus schoeniclusRJ11; incl. S. arundinaceusF17]
*Type species of generic name indicated
References
[CC10] Checklist Committee (OSNZ). 2010. Checklist of the Birds of New Zealand, Norfolk and Macquarie Islands, and the Ross Dependency, Antarctica 4th ed. Ornithological Society of New Zealand and Te Papa Press: Wellington.
[F17] Forster, T. 1817. A synoptical catalogue of British birds; intended to identify the species mentioned by different names in several catalogues already extant. Forming a book of reference to observations on British ornithology. Nichols, Son, and Bentley: London.
[RJ11] Rising, J. D., A. Jaramillo, J. L. Copete, P. G. Ryan & S. C. Madge. 2011. Family Emberizidae (buntings and New World sparrows). In: Hoyo, J. del, A. Elliott & D. A. Christie (eds) Handbook of the Birds of the World vol. 16. Tanagers to New World Blackbirds pp. 428–683. Lynx Edicions: Barcelona.