Orange-breasted Bunting, Passerina leclancherii
Orange-breasted Bunting, Passerina leclancherii grandior. Birds photographed in Parque National Huatulco, Huatulco, Oaxaca, March 2021. Photographs and identification courtesy of Marina Sutormina, Stockholm, Sweden.
Orange-breasted Bunting, Passerina leclancherii leclancherii. Photographs taken in the greater Zihuatanejo area, Guerrero, March 2018. Photographs courtesy of Ron Woheau, Zihuatanejo.
The Orange-breasted Bunting, Passerina leclancherii grandior and Passerina leclancherii leclancherii, are the two known subspecies of Orange-breasted Bunting, both of which are year-round residents of southern Mexico. They are a member of the Cardinalidae Family of Cardinals and Allies, which has forty-nine members placed in fourteen genera, and one of seven global species of the Passerina Genus. They are known in Mexico as azulillo pechinaranja.
The Orange-breasted Bunting is small in stature. They are sexually dimorphic with the adult males being easy to recognize with bright yellow underparts and spectacles, an orange breast band, turquoise upperparts and a green crown. The females are a uniform green above with yellow lores and yellow underparts. Their bill is blackish-gray with the base of the mandible being a lighter gray, their iris is dark brown and the legs and feet are grayish.
The Orange-breasted Bunting are normally found in pairs or small groups near the ground within dense, bushy arid to semi-arid thorn forest, brushy deciduous woodland, lowland scrub, edges, small, short-grass or overgrown clearings, agricultural clearings, and roadsides. They are ground to mid-story foragers, but their diet is unknown but assumed to be a seed eater that adds insects on an as available basis. They are rarely seen flying. They have been poorly studied and very little is known about their biology and behavioral patterns.
The Orange-breasted Bunting is easily confused with the Rose-bellied Bunting, Passerina rositae (larger with larger bill).
The Orange-breasted Bunting is endemic to the Pacific slope in western and southwestern Mexico being found from Nayarit south to western Chiapas, and along the Río Balsas drainage into western Puebla at elevations up to 1,200 m (3,900 feet). The grandior subspecies is found from southern Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima, Michoacán, and interior Guerrero each to southern Puebla and south on the Pacific Slope of Oaxaca to southwest Chiapas. The leclancherii subspecies is limited to coastal Guerrero.
From a conservation perspective the Orange-breasted Bunting is currently considered to be of Least Concern with stable, widely distributed populations. They are a popular component of the caged bird trade with approximately 6,000 birds shipped annually to Europe and Japan. Their long-term survival is threatened by agriculture, cattle ranching, and timber removal of tropical deciduous forests within their geographical ranges.