Puerto Rican Bullfinches: Caribbean American, Puerto Rico Five-One Icons

Summary: Puerto Rican bullfinches abound spring through summer and act as Caribbean American heritage month June 2019 and Puerto Rico Five-One statehood icons.

Puerto Rican bullfinch (Loxigilla portoricensis) in El Bosque Nacional El Yunque (El Yunque National Forest), northeastern Puerto Rico; Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2011, 02:22: Carlos David Hernández, CC BY 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons

Puerto Rican bullfinches are appealing as avian icons for Caribbean American heritage month June 2019 and Puerto Rico Five-One statehood as they appear most audio-visually in the beginning spring and summer months.

Puerto Rican bullfinches bear Old World finch-like, thick bills even though they belong to the Thraupidae (from Greek θραυπίς, small bird and -ειδής, -like) tanager family. Their conical, sharp-edged bills cooperate with cutting open the hard hulls of shrub and tree seeds that they catch with their tongues and consume without crushing. Puerto Rican bullfinches deliver dramatic displays of black and red bodies during daily deliberate, direct, distinct flight patterns that depend upon fast, powerful, regular wing beats.

Puerto Rican bullfinches perhaps encourage North American comparisons to albeit bigger-bodied red-winged blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) even though the formers' red marks never embellish their inner wings.

The months from February through June fit into the four-year life cycles of Puerto Rican bullfinches as annual breeding seasons in all but eastern Puerto Rico.

Physically and sexually mature female Puerto Rican bullfinches each gestate annually one two- to four-egg seasonal brood for sphere-shaped nests to which they give side entrances. Shaded twig forks of horizontal, long branches at 2.95- to 19.68-foot (0.9- to 6.0-meter) heights above shrub and tree bases hold nests honed seasonally by mothers-to-be. Spherical, 4.69- to 7.95-inch- (119.3- to 201.9-millimeter-) deep, 4.04- to 5.72-inch- (102.6- to 145.2-millimeter-) wide nests integrate woven cactus tissue (Cephalocereus) and palm fronds (Leucothrinax morrisii).

The Caribbean American heritage month June 2019 and Puerto Rico Five-One statehood icons juggle brown-, chestnut-, gray-, lilac-, purple-, red-blotched, speckled, spotted semi-glossy, smooth green eggs.

Puerto Rican bullfinch mothers-to-be keep 0.91- by 0.67-inch (23- by 17-millimeter) eggs within leaf-, grass-, rootlet-, stalk-, stem-, twig-woven nests lined with copperwood (Bursera simaruba) bark.

Puerto Rican bullfinches look like black-skinned, blind, gray-billed, gray-limbed 14-day incubated hatchlings; downy-backed, downy-headed three- to four-day-olds; feathered eight- to 13-day-olds; and fledged 14- to 15-day-olds. Immature female and male Puerto Rican bullfinches manifest conical, dusky, heavy, large bills and olive-brown to olive-green bodies; dusky feet and legs; and brown-orange-red undertail coverts. The scientifically named Loxigilla portoricensis, noted by François Daudin (Aug. 29, 1776-Nov. 30, 1803), nets brown-orange-red crowns, chins, throats, chests and undertail coverts as mature males.

The Caribbean American heritage month June 3019 and Puerto Rico Five-One statehood icons observe mature females with black-gray and brown-olive bodies and conical, heavy, large bills.

Black-billed, dusky-limbed adults present black-brown irises and female lower- and male upper-ranging 0.85- to 1.59-ounce (24- to 45-gram), 6.29- to 7.48-inch (16- to 19-centimeter) bill-tail lengths.

Puerto Rican bullfinches queue up fast, gliding, low, strong, undulating flights after insect, snail and spider prey and around flower-, fruit-, nectar-, seed-rich shrubs and trees. Their forest-, mangrove-, thicket-, woodland-marked, 3,822.41-square-mile (9,900-square-kilometer) territory, from sea-level through 3,280.84-foot (1,000-meter) altitudes, resounds with buzzy, trilled, whistled coochi-coochi-coochi, whip-whip-whip songs and low Tsweet! calls. Predatory broad-winged, red-tailed and sharp-shinned hawks, kestrels and shiny cowbirds stress Puerto Rican bullfinches on fragmented, reduced coastal woodlands, lowland evergreen forests and tropical deciduous forests.

Tangaras comeñames de ñames alados ("yam-eating tanagers of winged yams"), as Caribbean American heritage and Puerto Rico Five-One icons, tackle forest-friendly pest control and seed dispersal.

"Bouvreuil de Portorico Loxia Portoricensia," by French botanical and zoological illustrator Jacques Barraband (Aug. 31, 1767-Oct. 1, 1809) for French zoologist François Marie Daudin's 1800 description; F.M. Daudin, Traité Élémentaire et Complet d'Ornithologie, tome II (1800), Plate XXIX, opposite page 368: Public Domain, via Biodiversity Heritage Library

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Puerto Rican bullfinch (Loxigilla portoricensis) in El Bosque Nacional El Yunque (El Yunque National Forest), northeastern Puerto Rico; Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2011, 02:22: Carlos David Hernández, CC BY 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Comeñame.jpg

"Bouvreuil de Portorico Loxia Portoricensia," by French botanical and zoological illustrator Jacques Barraband (Aug. 31, 1767-Oct. 1, 1809) for French zoologist François Marie Daudin's 1800 description; F.M. Daudin, Traité Élémentaire et Complet d'Ornithologie, tome II (1800), Plate XXIX, opposite page 368: Public Domain, via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/39476395; Biodiversity Heritage Library (BioDivLibrary), Public Domain, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/61021753@N02/8182356489/

For further information:

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BirdLife International 2016. "Pyrrhulagra portoricensis." The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: e.T22723625A94826372. http://dx.doi/org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T22723625A94826372.en.
Available @ https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/22723625/94826372

Bouglouan, Nicole. "Puerto Rican Bullfinch Loxigilla portoricensis." Oiseaux-Birds > ID's Cards.
Available @ http://www.oiseaux-birds.com/card-puerto-rican-bullfinch.html

Daudin, F. M. (François Marie). 1800. "LI. Le Bouvreuil de Portorico. Loxia Portoricensis." Traité Élémentaire et Complet d'Ornithologie, ou Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux, tome second: 411. Paris, France: Bertrandet: An VIII (1800).
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/39476439

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Available @ https://neotropical.birds.cornell.edu/Species-Account/nb/species/purbul1/overview

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Marriner, Derdriu. 19 May 2019. "Puerto Rican Rain Gardens: American Wetlands and Puerto Rico Five-One." Earth and Space News. Sunday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2019/05/puerto-rican-rain-gardens-american.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 12 May 2019. "Stripe-Headed Tanagers: Fitness Month 2019, Puerto Rico Five-One Icons." Earth and Space News. Sunday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2019/05/stripe-headed-tanagers-fitness-month.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 5 May 2019. "Puerto Rican Parrots, Fitness Month 2019 and Puerto Rico Five-One Icons." Earth and Space News. Sunday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2019/05/puerto-rican-parrots-fitness-month-2019.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 21 April 2019. "Puerto Rican Todies, Earth Month 2019 and Puerto Rico Five-One Icons." Earth and Space News. Sunday.
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Marriner, Derdriu. 20 April 2019. "Puerto Rican Nightjars: Earth Month 2019, Puerto Rico Five-One Icons." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2019/04/puerto-rican-nightjars-earth-month-2019.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 14 April 2019. "Puerto Rican Screech-Owls Earth Month 2019, Puerto Rico Five-One Icons." Earth and Space News. Sunday.
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Marriner, Derdriu. 7 April 2019. "Earth Month, Puerto Rican Green Mango Hummingbirds and Sea Hibiscus." Earth and Space News. Sunday.
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Marriner, Derdriu. 31 March 2019. "Puerto Rican Emerald Hummingbirds and Puerto Rican Statehood." Earth and Space News. Sunday.
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Mowbray, Alan. "Puerto Rican Bullfinch." United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service > Find a Forest or Grassland > Select a State > Puerto Rico > Select a Forest or Grassland > El Yunque National Forest > Learning Center > Nature & Science > Comprehensive Wildlife Lists > Comprehensive Wildlife Facts List by Type/Year in Alphabetical Order > Birds.
Available @ https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/elyunque/learning/nature-science/?cid=fsbdev3_043071

Raffaele, Herbert A. 1989. A Guide to the Birds of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands: Revised Edition. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.

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Wiewel, Amber Nicole; Stephen J. Dinsmore; and Jaime Agustin Collazo. December 2013. "Nest Survival and Breeding Biology of the Puerto Rican Bullfinch (Loxigilla portoricensis) in Southwestern Puerto Rico." The Wilson Journal of Ornithology, vol. 125, issue 4: 720-730.
Available @ https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/765e/4059b0a2d1a56d7aacff3d0f6f1f7087c17d.pdf