Sporophila morelleti
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~40% in a week ~70%
Morelet's seedeater (Sporophila morelleti) is a passerine bird in the typical seedeater genus Sporophila. This species was formerly considered conspecific with the cinnamon-rumped seedeater (Sporophila torqueola), with the combined species known as white-collared seedeater. However, with the discovery that cinnamon-rumped and Morelet's are deeply divergent from one another genetically, don't intergrade, and aren't even each other's closest relatives within the genus, they are now treated as separate species.
It ranges from a small area along the Rio Grande near San Ignacio, Texas in the United States south through eastern Mexico and Central America to Panama. It mainly inhabits tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands but can also be found in pastures, arable land, and heavily degraded former forests.
The Morelet's seedeater eats mainly seeds and insects, and occasionally berries. It often forages on herbaceous plants, and less often on the ground. In captivity, it drinks and bathes often, but in the wild no drinking was observed, even though more than 300 hours of field notes were taken. Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | San Pedro Sula | 🇭🇳 Honduras | |
| 2 | San Salvador | 🇸🇻 El Salvador | |
| 3 | Tegucigalpa | 🇭🇳 Honduras | |
| 4 | San José | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 5 | Guatemala City | 🇬🇹 Guatemala | |
| 6 | Monterrey | 🇲🇽 México |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Morelet's Seedeater sighting in Biotopo Cerro Cahuí on a given day, based on 64 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 60th most-seen of the 191 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 40%, and over a week to about 70%, if each day is a fresh chance.
January and July
In those months about 30% of wildlife watchers report a Morelet's Seedeater in Biotopo Cerro Cahuí on a given day, against under 5% in September, the lowest month.
Between 6 and 9 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Morelet's Seedeater sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
13th of 39
Of the 39 parks where we can rate Morelet's Seedeater sightings, Biotopo Cerro Cahuí ranks 13th at about 10%. The best odds are in Cerro Azul Meámbar National Park (Honduras, about 50%), Lago de Yojoa (Honduras, about 40%) and Cusuco National Park (Honduras, about 40%). All parks ranked.
Same family: Thraupidae
The closest relatives of the Morelet's Seedeater that you can see in Biotopo Cerro Cahuí (family Thraupidae, Tanagers and Allies) are Black-headed Saltator (about 20%), Blue-gray Tanager (about 10%) and Yellow-winged Tanager (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Morelet's Seedeater is recorded against all the birds logged in Biotopo Cerro Cahuí (64 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
