Includes Barbados Bullfinch
- Loxigilla noctis
Identification
Overall black to slate-gray color, interrupted by rufous on the throat, just in front of eye, and in most races on undertail coverts. The female is a sandy gray-brown with rufous coloring to the wings and tail and greyish underparts. The head of the female is the same color as the mantle. Legs in both sexes are greyish to black, not pink.
Similar species
In St. Lucia, the St. Lucia Black Finch is a species that could be mistaken for Lesser Antillean Bullfinch, however, the black finch has pink legs (more prominent in the male), a heavier beak, has a habit of bobbing its tail up and down, and are more often found low in dense vegetation. The male is entirely without rufous, while the female has gray on its head in contrast to brown back.
Distribution
Photographed in Barbados.
Females of other populations look similar to this.
Used to be endemic to the Lesser Antilles but has now spread to the US Virgin Islands (part of the Puerto Rico bank) and is a vagrant to Puerto Rico. It is absent from the Grenadines but present on Grenada.
Taxonomy
A reassignment of this and similar species to the tanagers have been proposed, but it is currently placed in the Emberizidae.
The Lesser Antillean Bullfinch is divided into eight subspecies. Clements and the AOU have split the Barbados form as Loxigilla barbadensis, Barbados Bullfinch. The basis for the split is that the Barbados birds have no male plumage type; just a drab brown plumage as females on the other islands.
Habitat
Dense and semiopen vegetation, often around houses.
Behaviour
Often incredibly tame, well known for stealing nuts and sugar in outdoor restaurants.
