The Story
This female Gray Seedeater (Sporophila intermedia) perched on a slender stem near San Pablo de Borbur, in Boyacá, Colombia, in warm olive-brown tones quite unlike the gray male. The species feeds mainly on grass seeds, and its nest is a cup of rootlets and coarse plant fibers lined with finer material. The nominate subspecies is found across northern Colombia and from the center of the country north and east, and Birds of the World notes it is popular as a cage bird in Trinidad, where numbers are declining.
I made this frame with a Canon R5 and the RF 800mm f/11 plus the RF 1.4x extender, at 1/90 sec, f/16, ISO 400, −1 EV. IUCN lists the Gray Seedeater as Least Concern, and it is found in Brazil, Colombia, Guyana and Venezuela.
©2024 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Gray Seedeater (Sporophila intermedia) belongs to the family Thraupidae (Tanagers and Allies) in the eBird/Clements taxonomy.
Source: eBird.org (opens in a new tab)
Conservation
Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (assessment published 2024), with the population trend listed as stable. Source: IUCN Red List