Saffron Finch

Sicalis flaveola

The saffron finch is a tanager from South America that is common in open and semi-open areas in lowlands outside the Amazon Basin. They have a wide distribution in Colombia, northern Venezuela, western Ecuador, western Peru, eastern and southern Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, northern Argentina, and Trinidad and Tobago. It has also been introduced to Hawaii, Panama, Puerto Rico, Jamaica and elsewhere. Although commonly regarded as a canary, it is not related to the Atlantic canary. Formerly, it was placed in the Emberizidae but it is close to the seedeaters. Source

Where it is now

In the last 8 weeks this bird was recorded 189,598 times across 23 areas (each area is a 5 degree square).

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Movement and weather

Each season it is first heard regularly where daytime highs are around 27°C (typically 26 to 29°C, from 7 areas). That holds across 60° of latitude, which suggests its timing follows temperature more than the calendar.

Over the weeks it was present in the past year, its centre in South America ranged from 21°S in December to 0°S in June, about 2,300 km apart.

Arrival dates

The week it was first heard regularly in each region, after at least six weeks away. Dates differ from south to north, so a region has a range.

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Figures are effort corrected and come from automatic sound identification, which makes mistakes. How this is measured and how it compares with human observers.