Barbados Bullfinch

© Don Loarie

© Jean-Nicolas Audet

Birdfinding.info ⇒  Common and familiar throughout Barbados.  Often attends feeders and dining tables.  Many visitors to Barbados meet them over breakfast in their hotel restaurants.

Barbados Bullfinch

Loxigilla barbadensis

Family: Thraupidae

Endemic to Barbados, where it occurs in most habitats, including human settlements.

Identification

A small, plainly attired bullfinch that often seems unafraid of humanity, hopping on tables and cleaning up seeds and crumbs.

Differs from the closely related Lesser Antillean Bullfinch in that the sexes are similar, both “hen-plumaged” with grayish underparts and brownish upperparts, usually with rusty highlights in the wings and faintly buffy or cinnamon undertail coverts.

Barbados Bullfinch.  (Bridgetown, Barbados; December 19, 2017.)  © Henry Trombley

Barbados Bullfinch.  (Speightstown Esplanade, Barbados; December 29, 2019.)  © Ernest Crvich

Barbados Bullfinch.  ( Maxwell Beach, Barbados; April 13, 2013.)  © Greg Griffith

Barbados Bullfinch.  (Flower Forest Botanical Garden, Barbados; December 16, 2009.)  © Roy E. Peterson

Barbados Bullfinch.  ( Sion Hill Plantation, Barbados; October 29, 2018.)  © Grete Pasch

Barbados Bullfinch.  ( Sion Hill Plantation, Barbados; February 16, 2018.)  © Grete Pasch

Barbados Bullfinch.  (St. Thomas, Barbados; April 23, 2009.)  © Mikko Pyhälä

Barbados Bullfinch.  (Speightstown, Barbados; January 10, 2009.)  © P. Jennison

Barbados Bullfinch.  (Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary, Barbados; December 14, 2017.)  © Larry Therrien

Barbados Bullfinch—a notably gray individual, possibly an immature.  (Sion Hill Plantation, Barbados; July 9, 2018.)  © Grete Pasch

Barbados Bullfinch—a notably gray individual, possibly an immature.  (Bridgetown, Barbados; December 19, 2017.)  © Henry Trombley

Voice.  Song is a rapid, evenly paced series of about 6 to 12 loud whistled notes, sometimes followed by a buzzy chur: Calls include both clear and wheezy chirps:

Notes

Monotypic species.  Traditionally regarded as a subspecies of Lesser Antillean Bullfinch (noctis).

References

BirdLife International. 2016. Loxigilla barbadensis. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: e.T22734682A95094761. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T22734682A95094761.en. (Accessed March 31, 2021.)

eBird. 2021. eBird: An online database of bird distribution and abundance. Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, N.Y. http://www.ebird.org. (Accessed March 31, 2021.)

Kirwan, G.M., A. Levesque, M. Oberle, and C.J. Sharpe. 2019. Birds of the West Indies. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.

Raffaele, H., J. Wiley, O. Garrido, A. Keith, and J. Raffaele. 1998. A Guide to the Birds of the West Indies. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J.

Xeno-Canto. 2021. Barbados Bullfinch – Loxigilla barbadensis. https://www.xeno-canto.org/species/Loxigilla-barbadensis. (Accessed March 31, 2021.)