Brown-headed Suzaku (scientific name: Carpodacus sillemi): 15 cm long, male: forehead, top of the head, hind neck and side of the head bright tea yellow cinnamon red or tea yellow brown, slightly paler on the back of the neck, slightly stained pale yellow at the base of the mouth. The back and shoulders are gray, the tip of the feather is yellow without longitudinal stripes, the waist and tail cover feathers are grayish yellow and white, and the center of the feathers is slightly stained gray. The tail is dark grey with a wide white margin on the outer and small ends, and on freshly changed feathers, the margins are slightly stained pinkish yellow. The flight feathers are dark grey, the outer feathers have a narrow, inconspicuous pale gray margin, the outer 3 primary flight feathers are white but narrow and inconspicuous, the secondary flight feather tips and the inner primary flight feather margins are nearly white; the winged coverts and tertiary flight feathers are stained gray in the middle, the large and tertiary flight feathers are dark gray or black at the base of the inner and central parts, the large coverts are slightly embellished with pale pink cinnamon red, the winglet feathers and primary coverts are dark gray, and gradually become dark gray and black towards the tip, and the outer feathers have narrow dirty gray feathers. The chin, throat, thorax and thorax are pale cinnamon red skin yellow, the rest of the lower body is slightly stained gray yellow or light yellow skin yellow, especially the two sides of the pale yellow skin yellow is more obvious. Mouth orange.
The brown-headed Suzaku is described from two specimens collected in 1929 on a barren plateau in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of southern China, at an altitude of 5,125 meters. One of the collected juveniles has not yet fully grown wings, and collectors believe the birds either bred close to where they were collected or lived on peaks near the Kunlun Mountains. It was rediscovered in 2012 at a distance of 1350 km. The Yenigu Valley region, far from the remote western part of Qinghai, China, was discovered again the next day in yeniugou. In the 2013 survey, the species was not located anywhere outside of Bison Valley, and searches elsewhere failed to find the species (2016). However, the survey did conclude that the species is difficult to find even at the right altitude (2014), so it may only be native and rare.
Resident birds. Pairs or families, sometimes with alpine ridge finches, brown-backed snow finches and other activities and foraging. It feeds on plant foods such as fruits, seeds, inflorescences, buds, young leaves and stems, and feeds on insects during the breeding season, while eating weed seeds and plant branches and leaves, and purely plants in winter, including wild plant seeds and barley.
It breeds between mid-June and August, as do other high-altitude passeriformes on the Tibetan Plateau. Often dispersing in pairs soon after reaching the breeding ground, the male birds stand on the top branches of small trees or shrubs and chirp, jumping and flying from time to time between the upper and lower branches, or flying from one tree to another nearby tree, and the females fly to stand on the low branches or on the ground below the male, and mating also takes place on the low branches or on the ground. It nests in thorny bushes such as roses and on small branches. Adults begin moulting in early September.