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Large-billed Seed Finch | Sporophila crassirostris
Dikbekzaadkraker | Semillero piquigrande | Bicudo-do-norte
Large-billed Seed Finch is a large seed finch of wet grassland and waterside vegetation in northern South America. The male is black with a pale, very heavy bill. In the guide area the species is widespread mainly in Colombia; farther south it is scarce and local.
Voice
The song is a long, clear series of whistles and trills, fuller and slower than that of the smaller seed finches. The call is a short chek.
Recording: John V. Moore — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
14 cm, with a heavy, deep bill, pale grey to ivory in the male. The male is glossy black, with a white wing speculum and white underwing coverts; in the western subspecies occidentalis the speculum is smaller and the underwing coverts are darker. The female is warm brown, paler below, with a dark bill. Young males at first resemble the female.
Confusion species
Black-billed Seed Finch Sporophila atrirostris is slightly larger, and the male has a black bill. Great-billed Seed Finch Sporophila maximiliani is larger still, but in the guide area occurs only in Bolivia. Thick-billed Seed Finch Sporophila funerea and Chestnut-bellied Seed Finch Sporophila angolensis are smaller and have a black bill; the male of the latter has a chestnut belly.
Habitat
Grassy and shrubby margins of marshes, lakes and rivers, wet pasture and tall wet grass, in the lowlands and on the lower slopes up to about 1000 m. It eats mainly seeds of sedges and grasses. The nest is a small cup low in a bush or among 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 in the Caribbean lowlands, the Magdalena Valley and locally along the Western Andes (occidentalis). In Ecuador scarce and local in the Amazonian lowlands and irregular in the west. In Peru rare and local in the north-east. A few records are known from Bolivia, whose status is unclear. Absent from the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in Venezuela, the Guianas and northern Amazonian Brazil; also reported from Panama.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Search marsh edges and wet pastures with tall grass in the Caribbean lowlands of Colombia for singing males. On black seed finches, check above all the colour and size of the bill.
Conservation status
Least Concern, but locally scarce in the guide area. Trapping for the cage-bird trade has caused declines in many places.
Scientific name
Sporophila crassirostris | (Gmelin, 1789)
Gmelin described the species in 1789 as Loxia crassirostris; 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 comes from Latin crassus, 'dik', en rostrum, 'snavel', for the thick bill. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cayenne, French Guiana.