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Small Ground Finch | Geospiza fuliginosa
Kleine grondvink | Pinzón terrestre chico | Tentilhão-terrestre-pequeno
The Small Ground Finch is the most widespread Darwin's finch and occurs on almost all the larger islands of the Galápagos, from the coast to the highest summits. It eats mainly small seeds, but also picks ticks and other parasites from iguanas and giant tortoises.
Voice
The song is a short, simple phrase of a few repeated buzzing or chirping notes. Each male sings a single song type, learned from its father when young.
Recording: Patricio Mena Valenzuela — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
11 cm, with a short, conical, pointed bill with a straight upper edge. Adult males are entirely black, with a black bill in the breeding season; young males become gradually blacker over a few years. Females and young birds are greyish brown above and dingy white with heavy dark streaking below, with a paler bill. White tips to the undertail coverts.
Confusion species
Medium Ground Finch Geospiza fortis is larger, with a clearly deeper, more bulbous bill; intermediates mean that some birds cannot be identified with certainty in the field. Sharp-beaked Ground Finch Geospiza difficilis has a longer, more pointed bill. Common Cactus Finch Geospiza scandens is larger, with a long, slightly decurved bill. On Genovesa it is replaced by Genovesa Ground Finch Geospiza acutirostris. Tree finches (Camarhynchus) have a curved upper edge to the bill, and males have only a black head.
Habitat
All zones, from beaches and lava fields through the arid zone to the humid highlands and the pampa; also farmland and villages. It eats mainly small seeds of herbs and grasses on the ground, as well as insects, buds and nectar; it picks ticks from marine iguanas, land iguanas and giant tortoises. The nest is a domed structure in a shrub, tree or cactus.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Endemic to the Galápagos, on almost all the larger islands, including Santa Cruz, Santiago, Isabela, Fernandina, San Cristóbal, Floreana, Española, Pinta and Marchena. Absent from Genovesa and from Wolf and Darwin. Absent from mainland Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia.
- Resident
How and when to look
On almost every visitor trail, in Puerto Ayora and around the research station on Santa Cruz; also at resting marine iguanas, where the birds pick ticks from the skin.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species is widespread and numerous. Numbers fluctuate strongly between dry and wet years (El Niño). The introduced parasitic fly Philornis downsi causes mortality among nestlings.
Scientific name
Geospiza fuliginosa | Gould, 1837
Gould described the species in 1837 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. He introduced the genus Geospiza in that same work. The genus name comes from Greek gē, 'earth, ground', and spiza, 'finch': a ground finch. The species name comes from Latin fuliginosus, 'sooty', after the dark plumage of the male. The specimen the first description was based on came from Galápagos Islands, Ecuador.