All species › Passerines › Tanagers and allies › Black-capped Warbling Finch
Black-capped Warbling Finch | Microspingus melanoleucus
Zwartwangboomgors | Monterita cabecinegra | Capacetinho
The Black-capped Warbling Finch is a small grey-and-white warbling finch with a black cap and cheek, from the dry forest of the Chaco and adjacent regions. Pairs and small groups move through shrubs and low trees, often as the core of mixed flocks. In the guide area it lives in south-eastern Bolivia.
Voice
The song is a rapid series of high, chirping notes; groups keep in contact with thin tsit calls.
Recording: Franco Vushurovich — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
13 cm, with a short, pointed, dark bill and a reddish iris. In the male the crown, cheek and ear coverts are black; the nape, back and wings are grey. The underparts are white, the flanks pale grey. The dark tail has broad white corners that show in flight. The female has a greyer, less sharply defined cap. Young birds are browner and lack the black cap.
Confusion species
Ringed Warbling Finch Microspingus torquatus has a white supercilium, a black breast band and rufous undertail coverts. Masked Gnatcatcher Polioptila dumicola is blue-grey, with a thin bill, a black mask and a long, often cocked tail. Cinereous Warbling Finch Microspingus cinereus of Brazil lacks the black cap and is sometimes treated as the same species.
Habitat
Dry forest, Chaco woodland, thorn scrub and forest edges, from the lowlands up to roughly 2000 m in the dry valleys at the foot of the Andes. It forages in pairs or small groups in shrubs and low trees for insects, often in mixed flocks. The nest is an open cup in a shrub or small tree.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Bolivia in the south-east, in the Chaco and the dry valleys of Santa Cruz, Chuquisaca and Tarija. Absent from Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in Paraguay, northern Argentina, Uruguay and south-western Brazil.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Search Chaco woodland and dry forest in south-eastern Bolivia, for example in Tarija and southern Santa Cruz; watch for a group of grey-and-white birds with black caps and white tail corners in a mixed flock.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species has a large range and tolerates degraded dry forest, but deforestation in the Chaco is reducing its habitat.
Scientific name
Microspingus melanoleucus | (d'Orbigny, ACVMD & de Lafresnaye, 1837)
D'Orbigny, ACVMD & de Lafresnaye described the species in 1837 as Emberiza melanoleuca; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Microspingus was introduced in 1874 by Taczanowski. The genus name comes from Greek mikros, 'small', and spingos, 'finch'. The species name comes from Greek melas, 'black', and leukos, 'white', after the black head and white underparts. The specimen the first description was based on came from Chiquitos, Santa Cruz, Bolivia.