Black-and-chestnut Warbling-Finch

The black-and-chestnut warbling finch is 12 to 14 cm (4.7 to 5.5 in) long and weighs 12 to 18.3 g (0.42 to 0.65 oz). The species is sexually dimorphic but not dramatically so. Adult males have a slate-gray crown and nape, a white supercilium that becomes chestnut behind the eye, and a white "moustache" on an otherwise black face. Their upperparts and wings are slate-gray and their tail blackish with large white tips on the outermost pairs of feathers and less on the next two pairs inward. Their chin is white, their throat, breast, and flanks deep chestnut, the center of their belly white, and their undertail coverts buff. Adult females have more olive-tinged upperparts and tawny-orange underparts than males. Juveniles have brownish gray upperparts, a yellow fore-supercilium, a white eye-ring, and pale ochre to cinnamon underparts with olivaceous flanks.

The black-and-chestnut warbling finch is found in the Andes from northwestern Bolivia's La Paz Department south into northwestern Argentina as far as San Luis and western Córdoba provinces. It inhabits arid to somewhat humid brushland and woodlands and also the edges of denser forest and shrubby areas in agricultural lands. In elevation it mostly ranges between 600 and 2,850 m (2,000 and 9,400 ft) but locally reaches 3,800 m (12,500 ft) in Bolivia and is more common between 200 and 900 m (700 and 3,000 ft) in the southern part of its range.

The black-and-chestnut warbling finch's diet has not been studied. It forages on or near the ground, seldom more than 3 m (10 ft) above it. It often forages singly or in pairs but regularly joins mixed-species feeding flocks.