Chestnut-bellied Seed Finch (Sporophila angolensis) — Vorstman's Guide to the Birds of the Andes and West Coast

Voice

The song is a long, clear series of whistles that often starts slowly and varies in tempo and pitch; the song differs strongly from place to place. The call is a short chek.

Listen: SongXC1186249

Recording: JAYRSON ARAUJO DE OLIVEIRA — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto

Identification

11–12 cm, with a heavy black bill. The male is glossy black on the head, back, throat and breast, with a chestnut lower breast, belly and undertail coverts, a small white wing speculum and white underwing coverts. The female is warm brown above and cinnamon-brown below, with a dark bill. Young males at first resemble the female.

Confusion species

Male Thick-billed Seed Finch Sporophila funerea is entirely black and lives west of the Andes; intermediate birds occur in the Magdalena Valley. Black-billed Seed Finch Sporophila atrirostris and Large-billed Seed Finch Sporophila crassirostris are larger, with an even heavier bill, and the males are entirely black. Chestnut-bellied Seedeater Sporophila castaneiventris is smaller and grey with chestnut, without black. Female seed finches are told apart mainly by size and bill shape.

Habitat

Forest edges, grassy clearings, rank growth, abandoned fields and scrub, often near water, in the lowlands and foothills up to about 1200 m. It eats mainly seeds of grasses and sedges. The nest is a small, shallow cup low in a bush.

Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.

Range and movements

In Colombia east of the Andes and in the Magdalena Valley. In Ecuador and Peru in the Amazonian lowlands and the foothills of the eastern slope. In Bolivia in the north and east, in lowlands and foothills. Absent from the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in Venezuela, the Guianas, Trinidad, much of Brazil, and Paraguay and north-eastern Argentina.

Resident
dark = core range, pale = thinly spread

Density map from the occurrence records of GBIF (2006-10-01 – 2026-09-30), counted per 1.41° grid cell and per month and divided by all bird records in that same cell — so the number of birdwatchers does not shape the picture. Colour depth follows that share and fades out gradually, so the map does not follow national borders. Country outlines: Natural Earth (public domain).

How and when to look

Search forest edges and rough clearings in the Amazonian lowlands, for example around lodges and villages, for singing males on an overhanging branch. Males often sit still at the same spot for a long time.

Conservation status

Least Concern and widespread. Trapping for the cage-bird trade has caused strong declines in parts of Brazil and elsewhere.

Scientific name

Sporophila angolensis | (Linnaeus, 1766)

Linnaeus described the species in 1766 as Loxia angolensis; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Sporophila was introduced in 1844 by Cabanis. The genus name combines Greek sporos, 'seed', and philos, 'fond of'. The species name refers to Angola, the originally stated and erroneous origin. The specimen the first description was based on came from eastern Brazil.