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This female finch was shot on Santa Fe (Barrington) Island, Galapagos, a few weeks ago. Given the location I think it must be one of the following: Large Tree Finch, Large or Medium Ground Finch, or Large Cactus Finch; but I don't have a good enough book to help me pin it down. Can anyone help?
Sorry for not responding earlier Bill. I had seen your post and did a bit of digging but could not come up with an ID. I visited the islands once and the DFs confused the heck out of me! Anyway let's keep this one "unsolved" and see what people come up with.
Thanks John. I've sent an e-mail with images of 5 finch species to Peter Grant, who is the world's foremost authority on these Galapagos finches. I don't know if he'll answer me, but if he does I'll let you know.
Good thought Bill. Peter will know for sure!
John, Peter Grant wrote back to say that he thinks this looks like the Cactus Ground Finch (but acknowledges that the open beak makes it a bit uncertain). I'll post below the other images that he identified for me.
This one is the Warbler Finch, which was an easy one to ID. For some reason the images aren't loading, so I'll hold off on the others until I figure out why.
Peter says that this one is a Medium Ground Finch. I had previously posted it on ETL as a Medium Tree Finch, which would have been rarer, as the latter only lives on Floreana Island.
This one is a Large Cactus Ground Finch, a different species from the Cactus Ground Finch of the original post. I have other images, but this will be enough to demonstrate the amazing bill variation among these related and famous species.
