All species › Passerines › Waxbills › Red Avadavat
Red Avadavat | Amandava amandava
Tijgervink | Bengalí rojo
The Red Avadavat is a tiny waxbill with a coral-red bill; the breeding male is blood-red with white spots. The species comes from tropical Asia and is not native to the region: small populations in Egypt and Bahrain derive from escaped and released cage birds.
Voice
The call is a single, high, thin pseep, often in flight; a soft, low chirping while feeding. The song is a series of five to eight low, hesitant, slightly rattling notes, delivered from a reed head.
Recording: Mathieu Waldeck — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
9–10 cm, small and compact, with a short, rounded, almost black tail and a thick coral-red bill in all plumages. The breeding male is deep crimson on head, breast, flanks and rump, with a black lore, dark wings and a blackish belly; numerous small white spots on wing coverts and flanks. Outside the breeding season the male is grey-brown above and pale buff below, with a black lore, a few white spots on the wing and a bright red rump above the black tail. The female looks like this all year. Juveniles are plain dull brown, with a dark bill and no spots.
Confusion species
The breeding male is unmistakable in the region. The male Southern Red Bishop (Euplectes orix) is also red, but much larger, with a black belly and head without spots and a heavy black bill. Red-billed Firefinch (Lagonosticta senegala), which in the region occurs only in the Algerian Sahara, lacks the white wing spots and has a brown tail with a red rump and a yellow eye-ring. Common Waxbill (Estrilda astrild), a possible escape, is finely barred, has a red stripe through the eye and a long pointed tail. The juvenile resembles a young Scaly-breasted Munia (Lonchura punctulata), but is smaller and finer-billed.
Habitat
Reed and reedmace beds, rank vegetation along canals and irrigation ditches, wet grassland and the edges of rice, clover and cereal fields; also gardens and parks near water. Lives in small flocks that roost in reeds and feed on seeds on the ground and on grass heads.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the habitats of North Africa and the Middle East.
Range and movements
Native from Pakistan and India through South-East Asia to Indonesia; not native to the region. Locally established in Egypt in the Nile Delta and around Cairo, and a small established population in Bahrain, both derived from escaped and released cage birds. In southern Iraq the species was reported as early as the first half of the twentieth century; its present status there is unclear. Elsewhere, including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Israel, only single escapes. Beyond the region introduced in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Japan, Hawaii and Puerto Rico among other places.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In the Nile Delta, search reed-fringed canals and field edges for small flocks that dart low and vanish into the reeds with a high pseep. Outside the breeding season the red rump above the short black tail is the best feature.
Conservation status
Not globally threatened, but declining in parts of South-East Asia through trapping for the bird trade. In the region an introduced species, derived from escaped cage birds and not originating from the region itself; no proven harm to native species is known.
Scientific name
Amandava amandava | (Linnaeus, 1758)
Linnaeus described the species in 1758 as Fringilla amandava; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Amandava was introduced in 1836 by Blyth. Amandava goes back to Ahmedabad in Gujarat, the Indian city from which these birds were traded as cage birds. The specific name repeats the genus name. The specimen the first description was based on came from Calcutta, India.