Description:

Medium-sized to large, slender or robustly built pale grey to blackish finch with pointed bill, long wings and notched tail. Unstreaked to lightly streaked mantle, and rather uniform wing-coverts. Adult breeding has sooty-black head and nape, and brownish-grey mantle with poorly defined streaking. Male has pink on rump.

Distribution:

Common resident and altitudinal migrant allover Gilgit-Baltistan, except for lower valleys/settlements. Prefers high-altitude montane crags, treeless plateau, boulder fields, stony alpine meadows and high-altitude valleys from 3500m to 5200m.

Behavior:

Forages on the ground, and often along edge of snow-melt; takes seeds from lakes, also readily perches on long grasses, bushes, boulders and walls. Feeds on mostly seeds and shoots of small alpine plants, including those of Artemisia, Sedum, Primula, alpine poppy, sorrel, groundsel, chickweed and campion; rarely, berries of juniper.

Photo Gallery:

Range & Occurrence:

Resident Species

Summer Breeder

Winter Visitor

Passage Migrant

Distribution Map of Brandt's Mountain-Finch in Gilgit-Baltistan (Status: )

Seasonal Occurrence of Brandt's Mountain-Finch

Resources:

Birds of Pakistan: Helm Field Guides (R. Grimmett & T. Inskipp)
The Birds of Pakistan (T. J. Roberts)
Birds of the Indian Subcontinent (C. Inskipp, R. Grimmett & T. Inskipp)
Birds of South Asia: The Ripley Guide (P. Rasmussen & J. Anderton)
Birds of India: Collins Field Guide (N. Arlott)
Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan (S. Ali & S. D. Ripley)
Handbook of the Birds of the World (https://www.hbw.com)
The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World, 6th Edition
iNaturalist BoGB (inaturalist.org/projects/birds-of-gilgit-baltistan)
Birds of Gilgit-Baltistan (http://fb.me/birdsgb)

*Gallery images on this page are shared from flickr.com, and are copyrighted to their respective creators or owners.