Nombre en español: Pinzón Carmesí

Nombre en inglés: Crimson-breasted Finch

Nombre científico: Rhodospingus cruentus

Familia: Thraupidae

El soldadito carmesí (Rhodospingus cruentus),​ también denominado pinzón carmesí y pinzón de pecho carmesí,​ es una especie de ave paseriforme de la familia Thraupidae propia del oeste de Ecuador y extremo noroccidental Perú.

Taxonomía

Es la única especie del género Rhodospingus. Tradicionalmente se ubicaba en la familia Emberizidae, pero en la actualidad se clasifica en la familia Thraupidae.

Descripción

Presenta un marcado dimorfismo sexual, siendo los machos negruzcos en las partes superiores con una mancha de color rojo carmesí en el píleo, y tienen las partes inferiores también rojas que se tornan anaranjadas hacia el vientre. Su zona infracaudal es amarilla. Mientas que las hembras tienen las partes superiores de tonos pardo grisáceos y las inferiores anteado amarillentos.

Crimson-breasted finch

The crimson-breasted finch (Rhodospingus cruentus), also known as the crimson finch-tanager, is a species of small finch-like bird native to woodland and scrub of western Ecuador and adjacent north-western Peru. It is the monotypic within the genus Rhodospingus. It has traditionally been placed in the family Emberizidae, but is now associated with Thraupidae. It is strongly sexually dichromatic, with males being blackish above and rich orange-red below and on the crown, while females are overall dull greyish-buff.

Also known as Crimson Finch, the Crimson-breasted Finch is a poorly known bird that is assigned its own genus, and it is endemic to western Ecuador and northwest Peru. The species occurs to at least 750 m, but is generally much rarer in Peru than over its Ecuadorian range, wherein it is usually locally common. Males are striking-looking birds, being a bold mixture of red (over the crown, throat and underparts) and black (on the head sides, face, upperparts and tail). Females, in contrast, are dull, unassuming birds, which rather resemble Sporophila seedeaters, and are principally dull brown above and over the head, with paler, buffy, underparts, but they share the male’s rather slender, pointed bill. The Crimson-breasted Finch inhabits the understory of low woodland and scrub, usually in arid regions, and nests during the wet season (January–May), during which period the birds become distinctly more arboreal. In the non-breeding period, the species regularly forms flocks, in which fully adult males appear to be unusually scarce, and these frequently join bands of Sporophila seedeaters. The species’ song is a constantly repeated tsee-tzztzz, which recalls that of the Blue-black Grassquit (Volatinia jacarina), but lacks any real suggestion of two notes.

Identification

11 cm; average 11·6 g. A small finch with short-tailed appearance, and long and slender bill with rather straight culmen and gonys. Male has blackish head, including nape and side of face down to just above malar area, bright red coronal patch in middle of crown (can be raised like a short crest); upperparts, including upperwing and tail, blackish; throat red, this colour increasing in intensity to crimson-red on breast, and then less intense red on lower breast and belly; vent and undertail-coverts often whitish with pink wash, sometimes with dark centres on undertail-coverts; in fresh plumage has olive feather tips on back, nape and sometimes face; iris dark brown; upper mandible blackish, often blue grey cutting edges, lower mandible blue-grey; legs dark greyish. Female is very different from male, extremely dull in colour and unmarked, suggesting a female Sporophila but with longer and straighter bill; essentially pale brownish above, including head, upperparts, wings and tail, and buffy or pale yellowish on supercilium, face and underparts, with brownish-washed flanks. Immature is like female, young male often with orange wash on breast.

Fuentes: Wikipedia/eBird/xeno-canto