Black-winged Snowfinch Montifringilla adamsi Scientific name definitions

17 cm. Nominate race  has head grey-brown, faint paler supercilium and submoustachial streak, black chin and throat with small whitish feather tips; upperparts grey-brown with dark streaks, rump and uppertail-coverts blackish-brown; median upperwing-coverts dark brown with broad white fringes, greater coverts white (sometimes some brown on inner webs of some), alula dark brown, primary coverts white with dark tips, primaries  blackish-brown with narrow pale edges, secondaries blackish with whitish distal half; tail white, central feather pair black, all rectrices with black tip; underparts creamy white, breast washed buff; iris brown; bill horn-coloured, becoming black in breeding season; legs  black. Differs from similar M. nivalis mainly in having less contrasting plumage, less white in wing. Female has throat spot fainter, black of wings slightly browner. Juvenile is similar to adult, but warmer brown, with less white in wing, throat greyish , yellow bill base. Race <em>zerophila</em> is paler than nominate.

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Editor's Note: Additional distribution information for this taxon can be found in the 'Subspecies' article above. In the future we will develop a range-wide distribution article.

Occupies rocky, high-altitude steppe country and the neighbourhood of upland villages; near edges of streams and melting snowfields. At 3500–5200 m, but usually at lower altitudes than M. nivalis.

Seeds of alpine plants and insects  . Forages on ground , searching under rocks, commonly at edge of snowfields, and catches insects in flight. In pairs and family groups; outside breeding season in flocks, sometimes very large ones.

Season May–Jul. Breeds in loose colonies or isolated pairs. Has well-developed parachuting display-flight, hovering and falling with wings and tail outspread. Nest a cup of grass, wool and similar material, lined with hair, feathers and fragments of wool, normally placed in rock crevice or hole under boulder, less commonly in burrow of pika (Ochotona). Clutch 4 eggs; incubation probably by both sexes; chicks fed  by both adults. No other information.