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There’s also the plumbeous seedeater, Sporophila plumbea, or “mountain canary,” which is cheaper and as a result, more available, according to a December 2018 bird trafficking report by Traffic, a wildlife trade monitoring network.

In the Alamo Inn’s gift shop, a whiteboard lists recent bird sightings in the valley: Morelet’s seedeater; ferruginous hawk; crimson-collared grosbeak; golden-crowned warbler.

Jose Luis showed me in his book what I had missed by looking left instead of right: rufous-breasted chat-tyrant, slaty brush finch, black-and-white seedeater and Perija tapaculo.

Their preferences in color and pattern caused the evolution of different species of seedeater, all with the same behavior and diet, but with males that look different.

While the white-bellied seedeater is fine with looking and sounding rather dull.