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THE WILSON JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY • Vol. 124. No. I. March 2012 
The Wilson Journal of Ornithology 124(1): 166-169, 2012 
Nesting of the Cinereous Warbling Finch (Poospiza cinerea) in 
Southeastern Brazil 
Uschi Wischhoff, 1 ’ 2 Fernando Marques-Santos, 1 and Marcos Rodrigues' 
ABSTRACT.—We describe a nest and nesting 
activity of the Cinereous Warbling Finch (.Poospiza 
cinerea I in Paredao da Semi do Curral City Park, State 
of Minas Gerais in southeastern Brazil. Little is known 
about the reproductive biology of this globally vulner¬ 
able species, The nest was built with fragments of grass 
spikes in an Australian pine (Casuarina equisetifolia). 
The clutch consisted of three eggs. We describe 
courtship feeding behavior of the Cinereous Warbling 
Finch and brood parasitism of the nest by the Shiny 
Cowbird (Molothrus bonaritnsis). Received 2 January 
2011. Accepted 28 August 201 /. 
Plain-tailed Warbling Finch ( P. alticola) and 
Rusty-browed Warbling Finch ( P. enthropltr d 
are scarce or unavailable. Little is known about 
reproduction of the Cinereous Warbling Finch. 
Lopes el al. (2010) reported two individuals 
carrying nest construction material near degraded 
pastures and orchards in Fortaleza de Minas CO 
53' S, 46 42' W; 900 m asl) in October 2006, Wc 
present the first detailed description of the nest 
of the Cinereous Warbling Finch in southeastern 
Brazil. 
The genus Poospiza (Emberizidae) is wide¬ 
spread across South America and the Andes 
Mountains (Ridgely and Tudor 1989); it in¬ 
cludes two endangered Andean species and one 
vulnerable species in Brazil (BirdLife Interna¬ 
tional 2010). The Cinereous Warbling Finch 
(Poospiza cinerea) is endemic to the large 
savannah-like biome known as Cerrado in 
central South America (Silva and Bates 2002). 
This species may have been extirpated in three 
of the five Brazilian states where it originally 
occurred (BirdLife International 2010) and its 
population is believed to be diminishing in the 
other two states (Minas Gerais and Goias). 
Habitat loss is considered the main cause of the 
‘vulnerable' designation (BirdLife International 
2010). 
We searched the literature for reproductive data 
on the clade in Poospiza which includes the 
Cinereous Warbling Finch (Lougheed et al. 2000). 
Data are available for Black-capped Warbling 
Finch (P. melanoleuca) (Di Giacomo 2005), 
suggested to be conspecific with the Cinereous 
Warbling Finch (Ridgely and Tudor 1989). and 
Ringed Warbling Finch ( P. torquata) (Mezquida 
and Marone 2003). Reproductive data for the 
1 Laboratory de OmitoJogia. Dcpartamento de Zoolog 
» * Mi "“ e™*- c*» m 
j l.270-9UI, Belo Horizonte, Brazil 
2 Corresponding author; e-mail: uschiw@gmail.com 
METHODS 
Study Area.—We began studying the basic 
biology of a small population of Cinereous 
Warbling Finches in May 2010 in the Paredao 
da Serra do Curral City Park (19° 57' S, 43' 54' 
W) in Minas Gerais, southeastern Brazil. The park 
borders Belo Horizonte, a city of s2 million 
residents. The climate is dry in winter and rainy in 
summer (Cw a in Koppen’s system of classifica¬ 
tion; Peel et al. 2007), typical of tropical 
highlands of Minas Gerais. The vegetation in the 
area is classified as campo sujo with small 
portions ol campo cerrado (Oliveira-Filho and 
Ratter 2002). It is heavily degraded by urbaniza¬ 
tion. exotic and ornamental species (e.g.. Pwo 
spp. and Eucalyptus spp.), frequent illegal '^ge¬ 
lation burning, and intensive mining. 
The Cinereous Warbling Finch is frequently 
seen in small groups of two to four members 
loraging in typical plant species of Cerrado as 
well as in exotic species. We observed a small 
group with the aid of 8 x 40 binoculars and found 
a nest being constructed. The nest was monitored 
at a distance and its contents were verified when 
the female spontaneously left the nest. 
The gender of the individuals at the nest site 
was assigned based on morphological, behavioral, 
and vocalization characteristics (FMS and IJVV 
unpubl. data). Measurements were taken with a 
spring scale with 0.1-g precision, a caliper with 
0.1-mm precision, and a measuring tape. 
