Rufous-necked Snowfinch

The rufous-necked snowfinch is a bird of the sparrow family, around 15 cm long and very distinctive in its zone. It is quite brightly coloured for a snowfinch: adults have black lores and whitish faces except for the chestnut or reddish-brown rear ear coverts and sides of the neck, and the rest of the plumage is light brown, streaked darker on the mantle and scapulars. It is found naturally in Tibet and adjacent areas of central and western China, in alpine temperate grassland and barren stony steppes and plateaus, and winters south to Uttarakhand, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan, sometimes at lower altitudes (Wikipedia, general species account).

It has a soft voice and a chattering alarm call. It is locally very common and in the breeding season is usually found in close association with mouse-hares or pikas, in whose burrows it breeds and hides. Outside the breeding season it is more likely to be found in small flocks ranging over a wide variety of mountainous terrain, in company with other finches such as Blanford's snowfinches. SoIB 2023 lists it as a resident of alpine and cold desert that eats plants and seeds, without a priority category (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).