Yellow-browed Bunting - Emberiza chrysophris

On Friday 21 October 2022 Eva Heres was cycling near Bunne in the northern province of Drenthe when at c 15:00 hours her attention was drawn to a bird in the bushes alongside the road. She took several photographs and when uploading the photographs to waarneming.nl the ID-robot suggested it was a Rustic Bunting Emberiza rustica. Evan was not content with this and googled the words 'yellow eyebrow' plus 'bunting'. First hits were pictures Yellow-browed Buntings, so she changed the ID into Yellow-browed Bunting Emberiza chrysophris with the question "Is this really a Yellow-browed Bunting?". Vincent Hart noted this record and at 16:20 hours the news was spread on the alert system.
About hunderd birders made it before it became too dark (c 19:00 hours), but several birders were still at Zevenaar ZH looking in vain for the Bobolink Dolichonyx oryzivorus. I was not able to make it in time, so I went the next day with Nick van der Ham, Bas Lagerveld and Sander Tambach. We arrived an half hour before sunrise and we positioned ourselves in the eastern group along the Bongveenweg. The western group was double in size and also we thought the upcoming sun in the back would give us better opportunities to observe and photograph.
At 7:39 the bird made an appearance in front of the western group, although it was still quite dark. For the eastern group it was just too far to identify the bird, so we approached it more closely. Then, as the sun rose, the bird made several appearances and by 10:00 hours, it had shown itself to both groups at close range. Every now and then local traffic had to break through the groups and chasing the bird away, but the bird always came back. Most probably the bird was a first-year male, due to the pointed rectrices and the black sidecrown.