All species › Passerines › Tanagers and allies › Grey-hooded Sierra Finch
Grey-hooded Sierra Finch | Phrygilus gayi
Grijskapsierragors | Yal cabecigrís | Tico-tico-de-capuz-cinza
The Grey-hooded Sierra Finch is a sierra finch of Chile and western Argentina, with a blue-grey hood, an olive-green back and yellow underparts. In the guide area it occurs only as a rare vagrant in the far south. It closely resembles Peruvian Sierra Finch, which was formerly included in the same species.
Voice
The song is a short series of whistled and twittering notes; the call a metallic tchip.
Recording: Meena Haribal — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
16–17 cm, with a conical grey bill. The male has a blue-grey head, throat and upper breast. The mantle is olive-green to olive-yellow, in some forms with a rufous tinge, and the rump greyish green. The breast and belly are bright yellow, the lower belly and undertail coverts whitish. The wings and tail are grey with dark centres. The female is duller, with a brownish-grey, faintly streaked hood and paler yellow underparts. Juveniles are browner and streaked.
Confusion species
Peruvian Sierra Finch Phrygilus punensis has a darker slate-grey hood and a browner, less green back, and is the bird normally seen in the Peruvian and Bolivian Andes. Black-hooded Sierra Finch Phrygilus atriceps has a black hood and a golden-brown back. Any grey-hooded bird in the south of the guide area is a Peruvian Sierra Finch until proven otherwise.
Habitat
Scrub, rocky slopes, steppe and the edges of fields and villages in the Andes and their foothills, from sea level in the south to above 3500 m in the north of its range. It feeds on the ground and in shrubs on seeds and insects.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In the guide area only as a rare vagrant; there are just a few, partly unconfirmed records from the far south. Absent from Colombia, Ecuador and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in central and southern Chile and western Argentina, south to Tierra del Fuego.
How and when to look
A record in the guide area calls for good photographs of the hood, back and flanks; confusion with Peruvian Sierra Finch is the obvious pitfall.
Conservation status
Least Concern. Common within its range in Chile and Argentina.
Scientific name
Phrygilus gayi | (Gervais, 1834)
Gervais described the species in 1834 as Fringilla gayi; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Phrygilus was introduced in 1844 by Cabanis. The genus name comes from Ancient Greek phrugilos, an unidentified bird mentioned by Aristophanes. The species name honours Claude Gay (1800-1873), French naturalist who described the natural history of Chile in his Historia física y política de Chile. The specimen the first description was based on came from Chile.