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Slate-colored Seedeater | Sporophila schistacea
Leigrijs dikbekje | Semillero pizarroso
The Slate-colored Seedeater is a seedeater of forest edges and the canopy of humid forest, strongly dependent on flowering bamboo. The male is slate grey with a yellow bill, the female olive brown. In the guide area it is irregular and usually scarce; it suddenly appears in large numbers where bamboo is setting seed and then disappears again.
Voice
The song is a fast, high and dry series of buzzy and chipping notes, often with a metallic trill. The call is a short, high tsip.
Recording: William Adsett — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
11–12 cm. Short, thick bill, bright yellow to orange-yellow in the male, dark in the female. The male is uniform dark slate grey, with a small white spot on the side of the neck, a small white wing speculum and a whitish centre to the belly. The female is uniform olive brown, slightly paler and yellower below, without wing bars.
Confusion species
Blue Seedeater Amaurospiza concolor is dark bluish with a dark bill and lives low in bamboo. The male Variable Seedeater Sporophila corvina is black or black and white with a black bill. Slaty Finch Haplospiza rustica has a pointed dark bill. Females are hard to separate from other female seedeaters; in bamboo and in the canopy Slate-colored Seedeater is the most likely species.
Habitat
Edges and clearings of humid lowland and foothill forest, especially near flowering bamboo; also feeds in the canopy and in tall scrub along forest edges. Mostly up to about 1500 m. Feeds mainly on the seeds of bamboo and grasses.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Scattered and irregular from southern Mexico and Belize through Central America to Panama, with most records from Costa Rica and Panama. Beyond the guide area in northern and central South America. Because it depends on flowering bamboo, numbers vary greatly from year to year.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Reports of flowering bamboo in forest areas are the best lead; other bamboo specialists can then also be expected at such sites. Males often sing from high, bare branches in the canopy.
Conservation status
Not threatened (LC). Widespread but scarce and irregular; dependent on forest with bamboo, which is shrinking through deforestation.
Scientific name
Sporophila schistacea | (Lawrence, 1862)
Lawrence described the species in 1862 as Spermophila schistacea; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Sporophila was introduced in 1844 by Cabanis. Sporophila is Greek, from sporos 'seed' and philos 'lover': 'seed-lover'. schistacea is Modern Latin for 'slate-coloured', after the slate-grey plumage of the male. The specimen the first description was based on came from Lion Hill on the Panama Railroad, Panama.