Sporophila morelleti
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~60% in a week ~90%
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 |
Possible
About 20% of wildlife watchers report a Morelet's Seedeater sighting in Marino Ballena National Park on a given day, based on 415 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 38th most-seen of the 303 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 60%, and over a week to about 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
July and August
In those months about 50% of wildlife watchers report a Morelet's Seedeater in Marino Ballena National Park on a given day, against about 10% in January–February, April and November, the lowest months. Those are among Marino Ballena National Park's wettest months, with about 720 mm of rain a month against 110 mm in February.
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.
7th of 39
Of the 39 parks where we can rate Morelet's Seedeater sightings, Marino Ballena National Park ranks 7th at about 20%. 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.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Morelet's Seedeater is recorded against all the birds logged in Marino Ballena National Park (415 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.
