Collared Warbling-Finch

The collared warbling finch is about 13.5 cm (5.3 in) long; one male weighed 16.5 g (0.58 oz). The species is sexually dimorphic. Adult males have a gray crown with a thin black stripe below it, a long white supercilium, a black "mask" from the bill through the ear coverts, and a broken white eye-ring. Their nape is gray and their upperparts brownish gray. Their tail is blackish with much white on the inner webs of the outermost pair of feathers. Their wings are mostly gray with pale brown edges on the tertials. Their wing's median coverts have pale gray tips and the greater coverts whitish buff tips; the tips show as two pale wing bars. Their chin and throat are white with a wide black band below them. Their flanks are gray and the middle of their breast, their belly, and their vent are white. Their crissum is mostly white with a cinnamon patch. Adult females have a similar facial pattern to males but with a brown crown and gray-brown mask. Their upperparts are brown with darker streaks. Their tail is brownish with the same white pattern as the male's. Their wings are brown with buffy wing bars and buffy edges on the flight feathers. Their breast band is smaller than the male's and grayish brown with dark streaks. The rest of their underparts are off-white with obscure pale brown streaks and no cinnamon on the crissum. …

The collared warbling finch is found on Isla de la Plata off the coast of Ecuador and on the mainland coastally from southern Manabí Province to southern Guayas Province including Isla de la Plata in the Gulf of Guayaquil. There are also scattered records south of there. Its range continues south through Peru coastally and in the Andean foothills to central Arequipa Department. The species inhabits dry scrublands and woodlands, scrub along watercourses, and hedgerows in agricultural land. In Ecuador it is mostly below an elevation of 300 m (1,000 ft) but reaches 1,450 m (4,800 ft) in the far southern province of Loja. It reaches 2,900 m (9,500 ft) in Peru.

The collared warbling finch feeds primarily on invertebrates. It feeds both on the ground in dense cover and in trees. It usually forages in pairs, though the population on the Isla de la Plata regularly forms flocks.