C B Allen
Chris Allen
I was just reviewing the photos I'd added to my eBird lists for our trip to Costa Rica in April 2022 and worry that I've labelled one incorrectly. This bird was in low vegetation bordering an uncultivated field along the access road to La Gamba Rain Forest Lodge, about 15km north of Golfito in Puntarenas province.
We had already seen several Thick-billed Seed-finches earlier the same day & I'd photographed a male & female separately (we had also seen Variable, Ruddy-breasted & Morelet's Seedeaters in the same area). At the time we recorded this bird as another male Thick-billed Seed-finch but looking at it now it just looks wrong. To my mind it looks too slight and the bill too weak for Thick-billed - to the point that I'm having problems seeing it as anything other than Variable Seedeater. But if so it must be an individual typical of the Caribbean slope and not the typical Pacific form.
So, any other ideas or is it not unusual/unknown to get the all dark Caribbean race of Variable this far West? Or am I just over thinking this. Not great photos but the best I have!
We had already seen several Thick-billed Seed-finches earlier the same day & I'd photographed a male & female separately (we had also seen Variable, Ruddy-breasted & Morelet's Seedeaters in the same area). At the time we recorded this bird as another male Thick-billed Seed-finch but looking at it now it just looks wrong. To my mind it looks too slight and the bill too weak for Thick-billed - to the point that I'm having problems seeing it as anything other than Variable Seedeater. But if so it must be an individual typical of the Caribbean slope and not the typical Pacific form.
So, any other ideas or is it not unusual/unknown to get the all dark Caribbean race of Variable this far West? Or am I just over thinking this. Not great photos but the best I have!
