First published photograph of juvenile Cinnamon Warbling-finch

On 2nd January 2017, I made a return visit to a gully just south of Las Grutas, Río Negro Province, Argentina, to bird the coastal xerophytic scrub there. During the visit I took some photographs of a bird that I assumed at the time to be a female Cinnamon Warbling-finch (Poospiza ornata), having seen an adult male in the same gully the day before, but paid little further regard to it as my attention was attracted by my main target species – Sandy Gallito (Teledromas fuscus). When working up the photographs some months later, I realised that although the bird in question resembled a female Cinnamon Warbling-finch, its underparts were white washed with cinnamon and streaked heavily with grey and hence was probably a juvenile.

A review of the literature showed there to be no description of juvenile Cinnamon Warbling-finch. Ridgely & Tudor (1989) and (2009) contain no information, while Jaramillo (2017) states that the juvenile is undescribed. Correspondence with the HBW team confirmed this, but referred me to a reference (Sagario et al. 2012) which cites unpublished data describing juvenile plumage as follows: “The head, face, and back are similar to that of the adult female, but the breast and belly are almost white, with gray streaks (Sagario, unpublished data).” Therefore, I believe this photograph to be the first published image of the juvenile plumage of Cinnamon Warbling-finch .

References:

Jaramillo, A. (2018). Cinnamon Warbling-finch (Poospiza ornata). In: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. (retrieved from https://www.hbw.com/node/62064 on 26 January 2018).

Ridgely, R.S. & Tudor, G. (1989). The Birds of South America. Vol. 1. The oscine passerines. Oxford University Press & University of Texas Press, Oxford & Austin.

Ridgely, R.S. & Tudor, G. (2009). Birds of South America: Passerines. Christopher Helm. London.

Sagario, M. C., V. R. Cueto, J. Lopez de Casenave, F. A. Milesi and L. Marone. 2012. Cinnamon Warbling-Finch (Poospiza ornata), version 1.0. In Neotropical Birds Online (T. S. Schulenberg, editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York, USA.