Peg-billed Finch
Acanthidops bairdi
Dull medium-gray finch with oddly long pointed bill, usually with pinkish or yellowish lower mandible. Female browner than male, with brown wingbars, but bill shape still very distinctive. Found at high elevations, usually above 1500m, in brushy areas or scrubby forest. Almost always found around seeding bamboo.
Identification
The peg-billed finch is a long-tailed species, 13.5 cm long and weighing 16 g. It has a distinctive long upturned bill with a black upper mandible and yellow lower mandible. The adult male is slate grey, becoming paler on the belly. The female is olive-brown above, becoming paler below and with a grey tinge to the head and upper back. She has bright cinnamon wing bars and buff supercilia. Young birds are similar to the female, but have paler plumage and weaker wing bars.<p>It has a dry pzeek call, and the male's song consists of high whistled notes ending with a buzz, chee shee shee shee paah.
Taxonomy
The peg-billed finch was formally described in 1882 by the American ornithologist Robert Ridgway from a specimen collected near the Irazú Volcano in Costa Rica. To accommodate the new species Ridgway introduced the genus Acanthidops and coined the binomial name Acanthidops bairdi. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek akanthis meaning "spiky" with ōps meaning "face". The specific epithet honours the American naturalist Spencer Fullerton Baird. No subspecies are recognised.
- Scientific name
- Acanthidops bairdi
- Authority
- Ridgway, 1882
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Thraupidae
- Genus
- Acanthidops
Range and habitat
This is an uncommon bird at the edges and clearings of mountain forests, and in scrubby second growth, bamboo clumps, and bushy pastures from 1500 m altitude to the timberline. In the wet season it can descend to 1200 m altitude. Its numbers have reported to be high when the bamboo is flowering on favoured sites such as Cerro de la Muerte.
- Migration
- Resident species
Behavior
The finch is seen singly, in pairs, family groups or in mixed-species feeding flocks with other small birds such as warblers.<p>The nest, built by the female, is a cup of plant material into which she lays typically four eggs. The female alone incubates for 12–14 days to hatching.<p>It feeds on insects and spiders, grass and bamboo seeds. It will also squeeze nectar from flowers and juice from berries.
Conservation
- Population trend
- stable
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
Other Birds
American White Pelican
Pelecanus erythrorhynchos
Extremely large and conspicuous. White with black wingtips. Very long, orange bill with pouch for scooping up fish. Forages in flocks, swimming together to concentrate fish. Often soars in flocks, infrequently flapping, during migration and when traveling between feeding sites.
Crimson Seedcracker
Pyrenestes sanguineus
A chunky-billed brown finch with an electric-red rump, red tail, and red hood that extends from the throat to the nape; the hood of the male is larger than the female’s and extends down the flanks. Juvenile is duller than the adult. A secretive and uncommon resident restricted to Upper Guinea, found in pairs in swamp forest, scrub near creeks, and thickets near water in primary and secondary forest; also sometimes in cultivation. Song is a variable series of buzzes and whistles, and call is a strident “tsut…tsut.” Male Black-bellied Seedcracker differs from Crimson by having a black (not brown) back and belly; females and juveniles are almost identical but only overlap in eastern Ivory Coast.
Scrub Honeyeater
Meliphaga albonotata
A medium-sized honeyeater of foothill and mid-mountain scrub. Uniform olive green with a white ear spot and indistinct streak in the base of the bill. Some geographical overlap with the similar Forest Honeyeater, the only other similar species with a white ear spot, but Scrub Honeyeater has more green in the wing and is usually in scrub rather than forest interior. Call, a “chup!” similar to other similar species or a rapid series of whistles.
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