Many-colored Chaco Finch Saltatricula multicolor Scientific name definitions

The many-colored Chaco-finch is a brightly-plumaged finch that can easily be located  by its loud, distinctive song which it often gives from a promontorial perch, where it can be readily observed.  It is found commonly in the arid Chaco region of central southern South America, in Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and extreme southwestern Brazil. The Many-colored Chaco-finch primarily eats grass seeds, but will also feed faculatively on sap released from drillings of the White-fronted Woodpecker (Melanerpes cactorum). Relative abundance of this species appears to fluctuate with respect to habitat type throughout the year, but whether this is due to changing food abundance, available nest sites,  or variable competition from migrant birds remains unclear.

18 cm; 20–25 g. A slim finch with long and relatively wide tail, bill moderately thick at base and with convex culmen and gonys. Male has distinctive face pattern, with forehead and front of face (anterior to eye) black, black continuing down through cheek and bordering white of throat to end on side of neck, pattern further accentuated by bold white posterior supercilium (broadest behind eye, tapering towards nape); small white submous­tachial spot at base of lower mandible, narrow but well-defined white lower half of eyering, grey ear-coverts; crown brown, continuing to brownish nape; upperparts pale brown with olive wash, becoming grey on lower back, rump and uppertail-coverts; upperwing similarly brownish, lesser and median upperwing-coverts usually greyish or greyish-brown, flight-feathers and tertials with pale brown edges, greyer on primaries; tail blackish, central feather pair grey, outer rectrices largely white on distal third (creating very obvious white tail corners when in flight, or when seen from below); grey of face continues down to breast side and around blackish “droopy” mask, ending in greyish breastband below white throat; lower pectoral band and side of breast to flanks bright cinnamon-buff, belly, vent and undertail-coverts whitish; iris dark; bill bright yellow, darker culmen; legs dusky. Female is very similar to male, often indistinguishable, but when in direct comparison seen to be slightly duller in coloration, with mask less extensive and paler in colour, also grey of face and breast less vivid. Juvenile is like female, but paler brownish above, and significantly paler on sides and flanks, also bill blackish with dull yellow along cutting edge.

SE Bolivia (E Santa Cruz, Chuquisaca and Tarija), W Paraguay (W of R Paraguay), N Argentina E of foothills (S to C Mendoza, S San Luis, S Córdoba and S Santa Fe, and from C Formosa and C Chaco S to S Corrientes and Entre Ríos) and NW Uruguay, possibly also adjacent SW Brasil (extreme W Rio Grande do Sul (3 Bellagamba, G., Bellagamba-Oliveira, D. and Agne, C.E. (2013). Primeiro registro para o Brasil de Saltatricula multicolor (Passeriformes: Thraupidae) Atualidades Orn. 174: 8. In Portuguese. Close ) ).

Open <em>chaco</em> woodland , particularly along road edges, edges of fields and in more open and shrubbier parts.

Song  , given persistently even through heat of day, a repetitive and simple warble, “vera-vera-vera...”. Call a dull-sounding “chup”, often doubled as “chu-chup” ; other calls include higher-pitched “swiip”.

Alvaro began birding as an 11 year old in Canada, and eventually trained in Evolutionary Ecology studying, creatures as varied as leaf-cutter ants and Argentine cowbirds. But his career has been focused on birding tourism, both as a guide and owner of his tour company, as well as a avitourism consultant to various organizations. He is the author of Birds of Chile, New World Blackbirds: The Icterids, as well as the ABA Field Guide to the birds of California. He lives in Half Moon Bay, California where he is known for his pelagic birding trips. Email: alvaro@alvarosadventures.com.