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Grey-winged Inca Finch | Incaspiza ortizi
Grijsvleugelincagors | Incaspiza aligrís | Tico-tico-inca-de-asa-cinza
The Grey-winged Inca Finch is a large inca finch of dry slopes in northern Peru. It resembles the other inca finches with its grey head, black face and yellow bill, but lacks the rufous on the wings. The species is local and lives in a small area around the middle Marañón valley.
Voice
The song is a high, thin, somewhat buzzy series of notes. The call is a thin tseet. Little has been published on the vocalizations.
Recording: Manuel Roberto Roncal Rabanal — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
15–16 cm, with a conical, yellow to orange-yellow bill. The forehead, lores and chin are black. The head, neck and breast are grey, the belly whitish. The back is brown with a rufous tinge; the wings are grey, without rufous coverts. The tail is dark with white outer tail feathers. The sexes are similar. Young birds are duller and browner.
Confusion species
Rufous-backed Inca Finch Incaspiza personata has rufous wing coverts and lives higher and farther south. Buff-bridled Inca Finch Incaspiza laeta is smaller, with a buff-yellow malar stripe and rufous on the wings. Little Inca Finch Incaspiza watkinsi is much smaller, with a streaked back, and lives lower in the valley. Cinereous Finch Piezorina cinerea is plain pale grey with a heavy yellow bill and lives in the coastal desert.
Habitat
Dry scrub with cacti, bromeliads and scattered trees on steep, rocky slopes, roughly between 1800 and 2500 m. It feeds on the ground and low in shrubs on seeds and insects. Little is known about the nest.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In northern Peru: in the middle Marañón valley in Cajamarca and locally on the west side of the Andes in Cajamarca and adjacent Piura (around Huancabamba). Absent from Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and the Galápagos. Does not occur outside the guide area.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Search the Marañón valley in Cajamarca, for example around Utco along the road from Celendín to Balsas, on slopes with cacti and shrubs. The birds often stay low and run between the shrubs.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The range is small and the species is local; grazing, burning and the spread of farming on the slopes can degrade the dry scrub.
Scientific name
Incaspiza ortizi | Zimmer, 1952
Zimmer described the species in 1952 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Incaspiza was introduced in 1898 by Ridgway. The genus name combines the Incas with Greek spiza, 'finch'. The species name honours the Peruvian ornithologist Javier Ortiz de la Puente (active around 1951). The specimen the first description was based on came from La Esperanza, Cajamarca, Peru.