Birds of Panama - Sporophila


Variable Seedeater (Sporophila corvina) Male Soberania National Park, Panama
Photograph by Tom Friedel © All Rights Reserved.


Variable Seedeater (Sporophila corvina) Female Cerro Azul, Panama
Photograph by Tom Friedel © All Rights Reserved.

All black in the north part of range (Central America), while birds further south have a white breast with a crescent-shaped band across the chest.
Male from back with tail spread.


Thick-billed Seed Finch (Sporophila funerea ochrogyne) Male Bahia Solano, Choco, Colombia
Photograph by Tom Friedel © All Rights Reserved.


Thick-billed Seed Finch (Sporophila funerea) Female Darien, Panama
Photograph by Tom Friedel © All Rights Reserved.


Ruddy-breasted Seedeater (Sporophila minuta minuta) Male Puerto Boyacá, Colombia
Photograph by Tom Friedel © All Rights Reserved.


Ruddy-breasted Seedeater (Sporophila minuta parva) Female Sabaneta, Antioquia, Colombia
Photograph by Tom Friedel © All Rights Reserved.

As seen from the latin name minutus, a tiny seedeater that favors grass seeds.
Eating grass seeds


Morelet's Seedeater (Sporophila morelleti morelleti) Male Costa Rica Race without cinnamon colors found from east Mexico to Panama.
Photograph by Jorge Obando Gutierrez © Copyrighted, All Rights Reserved.


Morelet's Seedeater (Sporophila morelleti) Female Caño Negro, Costa Rica Note wing bars.
Photograph by Tom Benson Copyright and usage info This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported. In short: you are free to share the file for non-commercial purposes under the conditions that you appropriately attribute it, and that you distribute it only under a license identical to this one. You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.


Yellow-bellied Seedeater (Sporophila nigricollis nigricollis) Male Recinto del Pensamiento, Manizales, Colombia
Photograph by Tom Friedel © All Rights Reserved.


Yellow-bellied Seedeater (Sporophila nigricollis nigricollis) Female Otún Quimbaya Wildlife Sanctuary, Pereira, Risaralda, Colombia
Photograph by Tom Friedel © All Rights Reserved.


Nicaraguan Seed Finch (Sporophila nuttingi) Male Medio Queso, Los Chiles, Costa Rica
Photograph by Jorge Obando Gutierrez © Copyrighted, All Rights Reserved.


Nicaraguan Seed Finch (Sporophila nuttingi) Female Medio Queso, Los Chiles, Costa Rica
Photograph by Jorge Obando Gutierrez © Copyrighted, All Rights Reserved.


Slate-colored Seedeater (Sporophila schistacea schistacea) Male Jaco, Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Photograph by Jorge Obando Gutierrez © Copyrighted, All Rights Reserved.


Slate-colored Seedeater (Sporophila schistacea longipennis) Female Zafra Reserva Natural, Antioquia, Colombia
Photograph by Tom Friedel © All Rights Reserved.

Note white eye-ring compared to very similar Grey Seedeater. Generally a lowland species. Not reliable (wanders), but often found in flocks at bamboo when seeds are present (HBW). Note smaller bill with more curved culmen than Grey Seedeater (hard to be sure about).
Female eating bamboo seed.