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Plain-tailed Warbling Finch | Microspingus alticola
Grijsstaartboomgors | Monterita de Cajamarca | Capacetinho-de-cauda-lisa
The Plain-tailed Warbling Finch is a grey warbling finch with rufous flanks from the Polylepis and Gynoxys woodland of the western Andes of northern and central Peru. Unlike most warbling finches it has no white in the tail, which its name refers to. It occurs only in Peru and depends on small, fragmented woodlands.
Voice
The song is a short series of high, somewhat shrill notes; also thin tseep calls.
Recording: Andrew Spencer — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
16 cm, with a pointed, dark bill. The upperparts are grey, with a long white supercilium above a dark grey eye-stripe and cheek. The throat and centre of the belly are white; the flanks and undertail coverts are rufous to chestnut. The tail is plain grey, without white corners. The sexes are similar. Young birds are browner and faintly streaked on the breast.
Confusion species
Rufous-breasted Warbling Finch Poospiza rubecula has a rufous breast and forehead and lives further south in the western Andes. Collared Warbling Finch Poospiza hispaniolensis has a black breast band and white tail corners and lives lower, in dry scrub on the western side. Andean Tit-Spinetail Leptasthenura andicola is streaked and has a long, forked tail.
Habitat
Polylepis and Gynoxys groves and dense shrubbery on slopes and in ravines, roughly between 2900 and 4300 m. It forages in pairs or small groups in the shrub layer and lower branches for insects, sometimes in mixed flocks. The nest is poorly described.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Only in Peru, in the western Andes from southern Cajamarca through La Libertad to Áncash, including the Cordillera Blanca. 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 Polylepis groves in the Cordillera Blanca, for example in the valleys of Huascarán National Park; watch for the white supercilium and rufous flanks of a bird moving low through the groves.
Conservation status
Near Threatened. The population is small and scattered over fragmented woodlands; cutting for firewood, fires and grazing threaten its habitat.
Scientific name
Microspingus alticola | (Salvin, 1895)
Salvin described the species in 1895 as Poospiza alticola; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Microspingus was introduced in 1874 by Taczanowski. The genus name comes from Greek mikros, 'small', and spingos, 'finch'. The species name comes from Latin altus, 'high', and -cola, 'dweller', after its high Andean habitat. The specimen the first description was based on came from Huamachuco, La Libertad, Peru.