On Bamboo, Tapichalaca, SE Ecuador (1 Viewer)

Hello All, two birds involved, both sitting on what to me looks like a seeding bamboo. The upper, dark one was at the spot called a Plain Seedeater, but I think the bill is wrong for that. Is it a Slaty Finch?
The lower bird was called a Band-tailed Seedeater, and I can see that being true, but I am not positive - I cannot see a band on the underside of the tail in any of the photos. Could it be Plain-colored or Paramo Seedeater instead? (and sorry that the second bird is not better focused)

thanks
Niels

njlarsen said:

Hello All, two birds involved, both sitting on what to me looks like a seeding bamboo. The upper, dark one was at the spot called a Plain Seedeater, but I think the bill is wrong for that. Is it a Slaty Finch?
The lower bird was called a Band-tailed Seedeater, and I can see that being true, but I am not positive - I cannot see a band on the underside of the tail in any of the photos. Could it be Plain-colored or Paramo Seedeater instead? (and sorry that the second bird is not better focused)

thanks
Niels

Click to expand...

Suggest m slaty finch and paramo seedeater but photos are so bad I can't really see the rufous vent on the second. Bill shape and colour wrong (too dark) for plain-coloured seedeater I think

I agree the quality leaves something to desire. These are out of camera jpgs, I will try later today to see what I can do from the raw images. I save in both formats and chose the jpgs to avoid bias.

Niels

Definitely Slaty Finch, and I should think Paramo Seedeater. Though there is regional variation, being that dark with such a contrasting bill points much more at Paramo than other candidates.

Thanks,
I will take that as a confimation, the Slaty Finch is done.

Regarding the other, I am adding one more image. I remembered wrong, I had gone with developing the RAW images yesterday, so here is a straight from jpg version of the fourth image.

I have a few more images, and I see a hint of rufous at the undertail coverts on some of them, but not really bright

Niels

I have read a little and looked a little and one thing I see is that a main difference between paramo and plain-colored seedeater is how dark the plumage is. So I thought that trying to compare with Slaty finch should be helpful. The Paramo seedeater has plumage about as dark as slaty finch, while plain-colored is paler, according to all the photos I could find where id seems reasonably ok. Given that I have slaty finch and the seedeater on the same photos, and the seedeater is paler on all of them, I am ending up with plain-colored being the much more likely species.

So, is there any weakness on these arguments?

thanks
Niels

njlarsen said:

I have read a little and looked a little and one thing I see is that a main difference between paramo and plain-colored seedeater is how dark the plumage is. So I thought that trying to compare with Slaty finch should be helpful. The Paramo seedeater has plumage about as dark as slaty finch, while plain-colored is paler, according to all the photos I could find where id seems reasonably ok. Given that I have slaty finch and the seedeater on the same photos, and the seedeater is paler on all of them, I am ending up with plain-colored being the much more likely species.

So, is there any weakness on these arguments?

thanks
Niels

Click to expand...

Of course, entirely up to you Niels, but two of us have already suggested Paramo

I just submitted the list for this morning to Ebird. This bird went on as a sporophila sp

Niels

One final thought - Paramo Seedeater is more of a forest interior bird. Certainly you can find it in scrubbier forest and at edges, but you won't find it in open pastures, urbanized areas, etc. Plain-colored Seedeater is more a bird of open habitat. You might find it at edges and in scrubby low forest patches but you won't likely find it in the understory of taller forest. Given that you have Slaty Finch, which is a forest interior bird as well, in the same photos, and given how dark the birds are with contrasting bills, unless you said this was at forest edge and the Seedeater was paler in life than in the photo, I would definitely log this bird as Paramo Seedeater. But I've seen plenty of both and if I make one ID error here or there it's not going to bother me personally and it's not going to greatly flaw eBird data in a case like this. I certainly understand the desire to be 100% certain, whether it's for a life bird or for the 1000th individual you've seen. To each their own!

Also, just checking on eBird, and Paramo Seedeater is the more commonly reported bird both at Tapichalaca and in the general area.

This was at the start of the Quebrada Honda trail where the open space is probably 3 meters/9 feet across and the other side falls away strongly with what I think is scrubby habitat. I think both of those two birds had been attracted by the seeding bamboo, which only was a very small stand.

Both species would be lifers for me, just like the finch was. As I said, I went by the fact that the Paramo seedeater looks equally dark as the finch on those photos I can find, while there was a very real and noticable difference in how dark these two birds were.

I did upload both images on the ebird submission, and I do not know if I will ever hear back there.

Niels