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Trumpeter Finches are small finches. Their plumage is dimorphic, i.e. males and females are different, at least during the breeding season. Breeding males have some red feathers around the base of the lower bill, a grey chin patch and, below a greyish-brown breast, a light-pink belly. The undertail coverts are white. The head is plain-grey, while the mantle and wings are greyish-brown. The the outer wing coverts and the flight feathers have pink frontal edges during the breeding season. Also the rump and uppertail are pink, except for a dark-grey terminal band. Their most prominent feature is a red short conic bill. Males in eclipse and females look alike. All pink is gone from the males' plumage. The chin and breast are grey, while the belly is creamy. The head, back and rump are light-grey and the edges of the wing feathers are also light-grey. In females and males in eclipse the bill is pale-pinkish to orange-grey. Both sexes have dark irises and greyish-yellow legs and feet. Juveniles are plainer and more brownish than adults in eclipse, with a grey front and greyish-brown back. Their bill is greyish-yellow.

The overall distribution of this species can be assessed, and specific locations where birds have been spotted can be found, based on individual sighting reports submitted by birdwatchers to ebird.org .

The global distribution of the Trumpeter Finch is available HERE .

There are 4 races of Trumpeter Finches. Altogether, their range extends from the Canary Islands in the West, via parts of Western Sahara, Morocco, Algeria, much of Tunisia and an area in north-western Libya (including inland areas forming parts of the Sahara desert) to the Nile river valley in Egypt, parts of the Midle East, Anatolia, northern Iran and Arabia (again, including inland desert areas) and on to parts of the Pakistan/India border region in the East.

In Europe, Trumpeter Finches are usually found only in the near-coastal mountain range in south-eastern Spain, from about Malaga in the South-west to Valencia in the North-east. They sometimes show irruptive behaviour and have on occasion been spotted in northern Spain, southern France and, in 2005, even up to southern England and Wales.

Trumpeter Finches are highly specialized to live in semi-arid and even arid habitats, including sandy and rocky deserts.

We have not seen Trumpeter Finches in Europe yet. D. Wilczynska reports spotting Trumpeter Finches on Lanzarote, Canary Islands, in March 2017. All sighting and photographic information presented on this page has kindly been contributed by D. Wilczynska.