All species › Passerines › Tanagers and allies › Chestnut-throated Seedeater
Chestnut-throated Seedeater | Sporophila telasco
Roodkindikbekje | Semillero gorjicastaño | Papa-capim-de-garganta-castanha
The Chestnut-throated Seedeater is a small grey-and-white seedeater of the dry Pacific coast and the western Andean valleys, from south-western Colombia to northern Chile. The male has a small chestnut chin and throat patch and a white rump. It is one of the most numerous seedeaters of open, cultivated land along the coast of Ecuador and Peru.
Voice
The song is a fast, dry series of short notes and trills, often with a buzzy element; males sing from a wire, shrub or tall grass stem. The call is a short tsee.
Recording: John V. Moore — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
10–11 cm, with a short, thick, dark bill, paler outside the breeding season. The male is grey above with blackish streaks on the back, a white rump and a white wing speculum; the chin and throat are chestnut, the rest of the underparts white. The female is sandy brown above with dark streaks and paler, yellowish white below. Young males resemble the female and gradually acquire grey feathers.
Confusion species
Parrot-billed Seedeater Sporophila peruviana has a much heavier, curved bill and, in the male, a black throat. Drab Seedeater Sporophila simplex is uniform grey-brown, without a throat patch, with two pale wing bars. Females of Blue-black Grassquit Volatinia jacarina are streaked below and have a more pointed bill. Female Chestnut-throated Seedeaters can be recognised by the streaked upperparts and the small bill.
Habitat
Open country with grass and rank growth: fields, irrigated farmland, rice fields, roadsides and riverbanks with reeds and scrub, also in the coastal desert where there is water. From sea level to about 1500 m, in Peru locally higher in the western Andean valleys. It eats mainly grass seeds and forms flocks outside the breeding season. The nest is a small cup in a shrub or in tall grass.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Colombia only along the Pacific coast in the south-west (Nariño). In Ecuador in the western lowlands and along the coast, mainly in the south-west. In Peru along the entire coast and in the western Andean valleys. Absent from Bolivia and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in northern Chile.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In Peru, search irrigated farmland, rice fields and reedbeds along the coastal rivers, for example around Lima and Trujillo; in Ecuador, fields and roadsides in the south-west. Small flocks feed low in the grass and fly up together when disturbed.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species is numerous and benefits from irrigated agriculture along the coast.
Scientific name
Sporophila telasco | (Lesson, 1828)
Lesson described the species in 1828 as Pyrrhula telasco; 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 Telasco, an Inca warrior in Jean-François Marmontel's novel Les Incas, ou la destruction de l'Empire du Pérou (1777). The specimen the first description was based on came from Lima, Peru.