All species › Passerines › Tanagers and allies › Rufous-rumped Seedeater
Rufous-rumped Seedeater | Sporophila hypochroma
Roodstuitdikbekje | Capuchino de lomo rufo | Caboclinho-de-sobre-ferrugem
Rufous-rumped Seedeater is one of the capuchinos: small seedeaters of open grasslands in central and southern South America, the males of which are grey and rufous. The species breeds in the rainy season in wet savannas and then moves away. In the guide area it occurs only in the savannas of Bolivia and in the extreme south-east of Peru.
Voice
The song is a series of clear, varied whistles and trills, often given by the male from a tall grass stem. The call is a soft tsee.
Recording: Capovilla Pablo H — CC BY-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
10 cm, with a short, conical, dark bill. The male has a grey crown, nape and back and a deep chestnut rump and underparts, from throat to undertail coverts; the wings are dark with grey edges and a small white wing speculum. The female is brown above and paler buff-brown below, with a paler bill. Young males at first resemble the female and acquire the rufous gradually.
Confusion species
Male Chestnut-bellied Seedeater Sporophila castaneiventris has a grey rump and grey flanks; the chestnut is limited to a stripe down the centre of the throat and belly. Tawny-bellied Seedeater Sporophila hypoxantha is paler, cinnamon, on the rump and underparts. Dark-throated Seedeater Sporophila ruficollis has a dark brown throat that contrasts with the paler belly. Females of all these species can hardly be told apart in the field; check the males in the same flock.
Habitat
Tall, seasonally flooded grassland and wet savanna, often with scattered bushes, in the lowlands below about 500 m. It eats mainly grass seeds, picked from the seed heads. The nest is a small cup low in tall grass or a small bush.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Bolivia in the savannas of Beni and Santa Cruz, where the species breeds; outside the breeding season a large part moves away. In Peru known only from the Pampas del Heath in Madre de Dios. Absent from Colombia, Ecuador and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area the species also breeds in Paraguay and north-eastern Argentina and winters mainly in the cerrado of central Brazil.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Winter visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Search wet grasslands of the Beni savannas in the rainy season (roughly November–March) for singing males on tall grass stems. Outside the breeding season the species joins flocks of other capuchinos; then check the males in particular.
Conservation status
Near Threatened. Numbers are declining through the conversion of natural grassland to pasture and cropland, frequent fires and trapping for the cage-bird trade.
Scientific name
Sporophila hypochroma | Todd, 1915
Todd described the species in 1915 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. 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 Greek hupo, 'onder', en khrōma, 'kleur', for the rufous underparts. The specimen the first description was based on came from Buena Vista, Santa Cruz, Bolivia.