Venezuela: Merida Bushfinch

While hiking to Aguas Termales La Musuy, we spotted this small bird going nuts singing on a dry bush branch. Turns out this is an endemic Merida Bushfinch Atlapetes meridae). While it’s locally common, it’s an extreme endemic with an ultra small and narrow range – basically just a couple local mountain ridges in the Andean highlands of western Venezuela (in other words – a birder’s jackpot. Supposedly, the bird is a high-altitude specialist living in the upper ranges of the paramo and to this day is poorly studied by ornithologists.