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Cabanis's Ground Sparrow | Melozone cabanisi
Cabanis' grondgors | Toquí costarricense
Cabanis's Ground Sparrow is a small ground sparrow with a rufous crown and a white face with black markings that occurs only in the Central Valley of Costa Rica. It lives on the ground in hedgerows, scrub and coffee plantations, in the most densely populated part of the country. It was long treated as a subspecies of Prevost's Ground Sparrow.
Voice
The song is a short series of high, thin whistles and ticks. The call is a high, thin tsip; pairs keep in contact with soft, squeaky notes.
Recording: GABRIEL LEITE — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
14–16 cm. Crown and nape rufous. Face white with a black spot in front of the eye, a black crescent below the eye and a black spot on the rear cheek. Throat white, with a black spot in the centre of the breast. Upperparts olive-brown, belly white, flanks olive-grey to brownish. Bill dark. The sexes are alike; juveniles are duller with a brownish face.
Confusion species
White-eared Ground Sparrow Melozone leucotis, which in Costa Rica lives mainly on the slopes around the Central Valley, has a black head with white spots and a black throat and breast. Prevost's Ground Sparrow Melozone biarcuata is very similar but occurs only from Chiapas to Honduras; the ranges do not overlap.
Habitat
Hedgerows, scrub, edges of wooded ravines, coffee plantations with shrubs and rank growth, overgrown plots and large gardens, mainly between about 800 and 1600 m. It forages on the ground, scratching among the leaf litter for insects and seeds, and usually stays close to cover.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Endemic to Costa Rica and thus to the guide area: only in the Central Valley and the adjacent lower slopes, around San José, Heredia, Alajuela and Cartago.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Best looked for along hedgerows and rank edges of coffee plantations in the Central Valley, early in the morning when pairs come out onto trails and grassy verges.
Conservation status
Near Threatened (NT). Its small range lies in the most rapidly urbanising region of Costa Rica; the loss of coffee plantations, hedgerows and scrub to building is the main threat.
Scientific name
Melozone cabanisi | (Sclater & Salvin, 1868)
Sclater & Salvin described the species in 1868 as Pyrgisoma cabanisi; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Melozone was introduced in 1850 by Reichenbach. Melozone is Greek, from mēlon 'cheek' and zōnē 'girdle, band', after the patterned cheeks of the type species. cabanisi honours the German ornithologist Jean Cabanis (1816–1906), founder of the Journal für Ornithologie. The specimen the first description was based on came from San José, Costa Rica.