This small finch has a gray face and back, a chestnut patch on the mid-back, and cinnamon tones on its eyebrow and underparts. It breeds in Argentina’s Monte Desert and moves north-east in winter.
The face and upperparts are gray, with a chestnut patch in the middle of the back. The eyebrow and underparts are cinnamon-colored, and each wing has two broad white bars. This combination helps identify the finch in dry scrub.
It eats seeds, and its local abundance and movements are reported to vary with rainfall and food availability. In the breeding range it uses the dry vegetation of the Monte Desert, but winter routes and distances remain poorly studied.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.