Cajamarca, Peru; 23 October 2011 © Nick Athanas

Endemic to western Peru and currently treated as Endangered by BirdLife International, Plain-tailed Warbling-Finch is largely gray and rufous, and has a long white supercilium and a white moustachial stripe. It is perhaps most liable to be confused with the larger Chestnut-breasted Mountain-Finch (Poospiza caesar), another Peruvian endemic, although these two species do not overlap geographically. Plain-tailed Warbling Finch is confined to montane scrub at elevations between 3100-4600 m, and primarily occurs in mixed Polylepis/Gynoxys woodlands, where singles and pairs often associate with mixed-species flocks. Plain-tailed Warbling-Finch seems especially fond of ravines, but otherwise very little is known about its natural history.

Recommended Citation

Huffstater, Kyle. 2012. Plain-tailed Warbling-Finch (Poospiza alticola), Neotropical Birds Online (T. S. Schulenberg, Editor). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; retrieved from Neotropical Birds Online: http://neotropical.birds.cornell.edu/portal/species/overview?p_p_spp=620396