All species › Passerines › Tanagers and allies › Dark-throated Seedeater
Dark-throated Seedeater | Sporophila ruficollis
Zwartkeeldikbekje | Capuchino garganta café | Caboclinho-de-papo-escuro
The Dark-throated Seedeater is a capuchino, a seedeater of the grasslands of southern South America. The male is grey above, with a dark brown throat and cinnamon underparts. The species breeds mainly in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, and in the austral winter moves north as far as the lowlands of Bolivia.
Voice
The song is a clear, varied series of whistles and trills; in the wintering areas the birds sing little. The call is a soft tchew.
Recording: Guillermo Treboux — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
10 cm, with a short, thick, dark bill. The male has a grey crown, nape and back, dark wings with a white wing speculum, a dark chestnut to blackish throat and upper breast, and cinnamon to rufous underparts and rump. The female is brown above and paler buff-brown below, without markings. Young males resemble the female.
Confusion species
Tawny-bellied Seedeater Sporophila hypoxantha lacks the dark throat. Ibera Seedeater Sporophila iberaensis also has a grey crown, but an olive-brown back, and its dark throat continues as a narrow collar around the neck rather than onto the breast. Rufous-rumped Seedeater Sporophila hypochroma is darker chestnut below, without a dark throat. Females of this group cannot be reliably told apart in the field.
Habitat
Wet grassland, marsh edges and savanna with tall grass; in the wintering areas also pastures and drier grassland. In the lowlands, mostly below 500 m. It eats mainly grass seeds, in winter often in mixed flocks with other capuchinos. The nest is a small cup low in grass or 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 Bolivia mainly a winter visitor (roughly April–October) in the savannas of Beni and the lowlands of Santa Cruz; in the south-east the species possibly breeds locally. In Peru rare in the south-east (Pampas del Heath). Absent from Colombia, Ecuador and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area it breeds in north-eastern Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and southern Brazil, and also winters in central and western Brazil.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Winter visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Between April and October, search the savannas of Beni for flocks of seedeaters in tall grass and look among the other capuchinos for males with a dark throat.
Conservation status
Near Threatened. The population is declining through the conversion of grassland to farmland and tree plantations, through burning and through trapping for the cage-bird trade.
Scientific name
Sporophila ruficollis | Cabanis, 1851
Cabanis described the species in 1851 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Sporophila was introduced in 1844 by Cabanis. The genus name combines Greek sporos, 'seed', and philos, 'fond of'. The species name comes from Latin rufus, 'roodbruin', en collum, 'hals', for the rufous neck. The specimen the first description was based on came from Montevideo, Uruguay.