7.9.

2014 Afghan snowfinch - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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more streaked, has stronger facial markings, and has a smaller bill, among other differences.
[3]
The flight of the Afghan snowfinch is heavy and straight. The alarm call is a sharp tsi, and they make soft quaak
calls in flight, and a stridulant zig-zig.
[4]
Taxonomy
This species was discovered relatively late, by Richard Meinertzhagen on a 1937 expedition with Salim Ali.
Meinertzhagen formally described the species in Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club paper later that
year, and gave it the binomial name Montifringilla theresae. He reported that he collected the type specimen
of the species in the Shibar Pass, between Bamyan and Kabul.
[3][5]
The name he gave the species was after his
cousin and companion, Theresa Clay, an expert on bird lice.
[6]
While Meinertzhagen described several dozen
species and subspecies (including others named after Clay), he was later found to have stolen specimens and
falsified records, and this may be the only verifiably genuine taxon he described.
[7]
Meinertzhagen placed this species in the genus Montifringilla, which most classifications continue to place it in,
along with about eight species of 'snowfinches'.
[3]
Among these species, it is most similar to Blanford's
snowfinch, which has similar plumage and essentially the same nesting habits.
[8]
Some authors split this species,
Blanford's snowfinch, and the other snowfinches of southern and central Asia as the genus Pyrgilauda,
[9]
on the
basis that their morphological traits, as well as habitat and ecology, are substantially different.
[10]
(This is an
arbitrary distinction, as there can be little doubt that Montifringilla in the broad sense is monophyletic.) One of
the more prominent works to follow this classification recently, the Handbook of the Birds of the World, called
the species of their genus Pyrgilauda 'ground-sparrows', on account of their different habitat and behaviour
from the northern 'snowfinches'. No subspecies have been described.
[2]
Distribution and habitat
The Afghan snowfinch is the only species of bird known to be endemic to Afghanistan.
[11]
It is found only in
some northern parts of the Hindu Kush mountains, where it occurs at elevations of 2,5753,000 m (8,450
9,840 ft). Besides the Shibar Pass, it is known from Deh Sabz and Unai Pass, and a few other localities
between 67 and 69 E in the northerly ranges of the Hindu Kush. This species disperses in the winter especially
after heavy snowfalls, and moves slightly beyond its breeding range, into lower altitudes and northwards into
Badghis Province. It has been recorded on occasion as a vagrant in southern Turkmenistan.
[3][1][12]
Its habitats
are stony mountain slopes, plateaux, and open hillsides in the passes.
[3]
Despite having a relatively small range and population, it is not thought to have an unstable population or
significant threats, so it is assessed as a species of least concern on the IUCN Red List.
[1]
This species is among
those protected by Band-e Amir National Park, Afghanistan's first national park, which encompasses a large
area of the Hindu Kush near Bamyan.
[13][14]
Behavior
In winter, the Afghan snowfinch forms large flocks of dozens or hundreds, sometimes mixed with snowfinches of
other species, rock sparrows, and various larks. This species feeds mostly on small seeds, from plants such as
Carex pachystylis, Convolvulus divaricatus, and Thuspeinantha persica, and it will also eat insects such as
ants and weevils.
[3][8]