All species › Passerines › Tanagers and allies › Buff-bridled Inca Finch
Buff-bridled Inca Finch | Incaspiza laeta
Geelbaardincagors | Incaspiza bigotudo | Tico-tico-inca-de-bigode-ocráceo
The Buff-bridled Inca Finch is a medium-sized inca finch of the dry Marañón valley in northern Peru. It can be recognized by a pale, buff-yellow malar stripe that frames the black chin and throat. Like all inca finches, it is endemic to Peru.
Voice
The song is a high, thin, buzzy series ending in a short trill. The call is a high tseet.
Recording: Jerome Fischer — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
14–15 cm, with a conical, yellow to orange-yellow bill. The lores, chin and throat are black and are bordered on each side by a broad, buff-yellow malar stripe. The head, neck and breast are grey, the belly whitish. The back and wing coverts are rufous; the tail is dark with white outer tail feathers. The sexes are similar. Young birds are duller, with a less distinct pattern.
Confusion species
Rufous-backed Inca Finch Incaspiza personata is larger, has a more extensive black mask without a pale malar stripe, and lives higher. Grey-winged Inca Finch Incaspiza ortizi is larger and has grey wings. Little Inca Finch Incaspiza watkinsi is smaller, with a streaked brown back, and lives lower in the valley; the ranges of the two meet without overlapping.
Habitat
Dry scrub with cacti and bromeliads on rocky slopes and in ravines, also along field edges, roughly between 1500 and 2700 m. It feeds on the ground and low in shrubs on seeds and insects. The nest is a cup low in a shrub.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Peru in the upper and middle Marañón valley (Cajamarca, Amazonas, La Libertad and Ancash). Absent from Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and the Galápagos. Does not occur outside the guide area.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Search the dry parts of the Marañón valley, for example along the road from Celendín to Balsas or around Chagual, in the morning on slopes with cacti. On a perched bird, look for the pale malar stripe.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The range is small, but the species is locally common there; burning and grazing degrade the scrub locally.
Scientific name
Incaspiza laeta | (Salvin, 1895)
Salvin described the species in 1895 as Haemophila laeta; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Incaspiza was introduced in 1898 by Ridgway. The genus name combines the Incas with Greek spiza, 'finch'. The species name comes from Latin laetus, 'cheerful, glad'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cajabamba, Cajamarca, Peru.