Category: Birdwatching

_{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

_{This YouTube video was produced by the American Bird Conservancy.}

Tiny, nimble, and sporting a bold black mask and “bib” under its bill, the Golden-winged Warbler (Vermivora chrysoptera) might be mistaken for a Black-capped Chickadee at first glance. But it’s the long, thin bill and the splashes of vivid golden-yellow on its crown and wings that distinguish this long-distance migratory warbler.

Though they are denizens of shrubby, early successional habitats (areas that are in the early stages of regenerating following a disturbance, such as a fire or a clearcut) in the nesting season, Golden-winged Warblers and their recently fledged young