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Grassland Yellow Finch | Sicalis luteola
Graslandsaffraangors | Chirigüe sabanero | Tipio
The Grassland Yellow Finch is a small yellow finch of open grassland, streaked above. The male often sings in a fluttering song flight over the grass. Outside the breeding season the species wanders in flocks, sometimes of hundreds of birds.
Voice
The song is a long, varied series of buzzy trills and chips, often given in a fluttering song flight or from a grass tussock. The call is a short tsip.
Recording: David Darrell-Lambert — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
12–13 cm, with a short, conical bill. The male is brownish olive above with heavy dark streaks and has a greenish-yellow rump; the face is yellow, with yellow around the eye and on the lores. The underparts are yellow, washed olive on the breast and flanks. The female is duller and browner, with paler, buffy-yellow underparts. Juveniles are brownish and finely streaked on the breast.
Confusion species
Stripe-tailed Yellow Finch Sicalis citrina is less heavily streaked and has white in the tail. Saffron Finch Sicalis flaveola is larger and more uniformly yellow, with an orange forehead. Puna Yellow Finch Sicalis lutea lives higher, is brighter yellow and has a barely streaked back. Grassland Sparrow Ammodramus humeralis is grey and brown, with only a yellow spot in front of the eye.
Habitat
Open grassland, pastures, fields, wet grassland and marsh edges; in the Andes also montane pastures and fields on high plateaus up to about 3500 m, and in the east lowland savannas. It feeds on the ground on seeds, in flocks outside the breeding season. The nest is a grass cup in a tussock, on or just above the ground.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Colombia local in the Andes, including the Bogotá plateau, and in the Llanos. In Ecuador local in the Andes. In Peru local in the Andes and along the coast. In Bolivia mainly on the savannas of the eastern lowlands. Absent from the Galápagos. Outside the guide area from southern Mexico and Central America to Venezuela, the Guianas, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina and Chile.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Search open grassland and pastures for singing males in song flight, and outside the breeding season for flocks on fields and wet grassland.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species locally benefits from deforestation and the creation of pastures, but disappears where grassland is converted to intensive agriculture.
Scientific name
Sicalis luteola | (Sparrman, 1789)
Sparrman described the species in 1789 as Emberiza luteola; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Sicalis was introduced in 1828 by Boie. The genus name comes from Greek sikalis, a small black-headed bird, perhaps a warbler of the genus Sylvia. The species name comes from Latin luteolus, 'yellowish'. The specimen the first description was based on came from (volgens de beschrijving).