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Yellow-faced Grassquit | Tiaris olivaceus
Grote cubavink | Tomeguín de la tierra
This small grassquit is among the commonest birds of roadsides, pastures and neglected gardens in the Greater Antilles. It also occurs on the mainland from Mexico to Colombia and Venezuela. In Cuba it is called tomeguín de la tierra. Birds are often seen in loose groups with other seed-eaters.
Voice
The call is a weak, buzzy trill. The song is a short series of high, thin, rapid trills, such as tsi-tsi-tsitsitsi, soft and often audible only at close range. Males sometimes sing in a bush, vibrating their wings in front of the female.
Recording: FREDERIC Lionel — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
10–11 cm, with a short, conical, dark bill. The male is olive-green above and grey-olive on the belly, with a black face and black breast. A bright yellow supercilium, yellow throat and yellow spot below the eye together form a clear yellow facial mask. The female is dull olive-green above and paler grey below, with weak, sometimes barely visible yellow markings around the eye and throat. Juveniles resemble the female but are greyer.
Confusion species
The male Cuban Grassquit Phonipara canora (Cuba only) has a black face bordered by a yellow crescent running from behind the eye to the throat, without a yellow supercilium. Black-faced Grassquit Melanospiza bicolor lacks any yellow; its female is browner and greyer than a female of this species, with no yellow tinge on the face. In Jamaica, Yellow-shouldered Grassquit Loxipasser anoxanthus has yellow shoulders and yellowish undertail coverts.
Habitat
Semi-open ground with grasses and herbs: roadsides, pastures, fallow fields, sugarcane margins, overgrown gardens, forest edges and clearings in the hills, from the lowlands high into the mountains. Dry, bare grassland is avoided. It feeds mainly on grass seeds plucked from the heads or picked from the ground, plus berries and some insects. The nest is a roughly globular structure with a side entrance, usually low in grass or a small shrub. The clutch is usually two or three eggs.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Resident in Cuba and the Isla de la Juventud, the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic) and Puerto Rico with its satellite islands. Only a few isolated records from the Bahamas and the Lesser Antilles. Outside the region from eastern Mexico through Central America to northern Colombia and western Venezuela.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In Jamaica, Hispaniola and Puerto Rico in almost any grassy verge or garden with seeding grass; in Cuba especially in the hills and along field margins. Flocks of grassquits are worth checking for males with a yellow mask; in Cuba the distinction from Cuban Grassquit is the key point.
Conservation status
Not threatened. The species is widespread and common and benefits from roadsides, pastures and other land opened up by people.
Scientific name
Tiaris olivaceus | (Linnaeus, 1766)
Linnaeus described the species in 1766 as Emberiza olivacea; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Tiaris was introduced in 1827 by Swainson. Tiaris is Greek, from tiaris or tiara 'tiara, head-dress', after the coloured head pattern. olivaceus is New Latin for 'olive-green', after the olive-green upperparts. The specimen the first description was based on came from Hispaniola.