White-winged Snowfinch
The white-winged snowfinch (Montifringilla nivalis) is a small passerine bird. Despite its name, it is a sparrow rather than a true finch.
Hear it on xeno-canto Community recordings — opens xeno-canto →In Türkiye
Arrives in spring and leaves in autumn; winter records are almost absent.
Most records in May–July.
Provinces where it makes up the largest share of bird records.
Adjusted for how many birdwatchers are out each month; the busiest month = 100%.
2,112 records from Türkiye · #248 of 634 species by number of records. Source: GBIF.org (October 2026). All birds of Türkiye
About
In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the white-winged snowfinch in his Ornithologie based on a specimen but without specifying where it had been collected. He used the French name Le pinçon de neige ou la niverolle and the Latin Fringilla nivalis. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson. One of these was the white-winged snowfinch. Linnaeus included a brief description, used the binomial name Fringilla nivalis and cited Brisson's work. Linnaeus listed the type location as "America". The type location was subsequently designated as Switzerland. The specific name nivalis is Latin for 'snowy' or 'snow-white'.
Text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
At a glance
The snowfinch lives near the snowline of high mountains, breeding on rocky slopes above 3,000 m and even in ski-station buildings.
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