This YouTube video was produced by the American Bird Conservancy.
The Antioquia Brushfinch was first described in 2007, but only on the basis of three museum specimens. A live bird was not found in the field until 2018, when an unfamiliar brushfinch was spotted by a keen-eyed agronomist on his way to weekly Mass on the outskirts of Medellín, Colombia.
The Antioquia Brushfinch belongs to a group of large sparrows found in humid mountain forests from Mexico south to Argentina. Its species name, blancae, refers to the bird’s pale underparts. It also refers to the Colombian lepidopterologist Blanca Huertas, the wife of ornithologist Thomas M. Donegan, who described the new bird.
This recently rediscovered relative of Ecuador’s Pale-headed Brushfinch joins the ranks of some of the rarest birds in the Western Hemisphere, including the Blue-eyed Ground-Dove, Marsh Antwren, and Cherry-throated Tanager.
Learn more about the Antioquia Brushfinch at https://abcbirds.org/birds/antioquia-brushfinch/
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