Distribution

Blue Seedeater occurs from Mexico south to Panama, and from southwestern Colombia south to northwestern Peru. Blue Seedeater is reported from only a few scattered localities in Mexico north of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, in Jalisco, Colima, Morelos, Guerrero, and Oaxaca (Miller et al. 1957, Howell and Webb 1995). Blue Seedeater also is reported from several sites in Chiapas (Miller et al. 1957, Howell and Webb 1995), including Yachilán near the border with Guatemala (Puebla-Olivares et al. 2002), and from a few localities in Belize (Howell et al. 1992, Vallely and Aversa 1997). There are very few records from Guatemala, from where it was not known at all until the 1980s (Eisermann and Avedaño 2006). There are few records of Blue Seedeater from El Salvador (Thurber el al. 1987), Honduras (Monroe 1968), or Nicaragua (Martínez-Sánchez and Will 2010). Blue Seedeater is local in Costa Rican and Panama, but the known distribution nonetheless is more continuous in these countries (Wetmore et al. 1984, Stiles and Skutch 1989).

Blue Seedeater also occurs on the west slope of the Andes in southwestern Colombia (Meyer de Schauensee 1951), western Ecuador (Ridgely and Greenfield 2001a), and in northwestern Peru in Piura and Cajamarca (Salinas et al. 1998, Schulenberg et al. 2010).

The elevational range of Blue Seedeater in northern Central America is 600-2500 m (Howell and Webb 1995), but is only 1700-2200 m in Costa Rica (Stiles and Skutch 1989). In Ecuador it is reported from 1100-2300 m, locally down to 800 m (Ridgely and Greenfield 2001a)

Endemic to the Americas.

Blue Seedeater occupies openings in, and the edges of, forest, especially humid montane forest and second growth forest (Parker et al. 1996). In Central America Blue Seedeater almost always occurs at sites with bamboo (Ridgely and Gwynne 1989, Stiles and Skutch 1989, Howell and Webb 1995), but is closely associated with bamboo in Ecuador (Ridgely and Greenfield 2001a).

None reported.

None reported.