All species › Passerines › Munias, parrotfinches, waxbills and allies › Tricolored Munia
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Tricolored Munia | Lonchura malacca
Driekleurennon | Capuchino tricolor
The Tricolored Munia is an estrildid finch from India and Sri Lanka, named for the three colours of its plumage: black, white and chestnut. Escaped cage birds have become established over large parts of the guide area in recent decades and are still spreading. It lives in flocks in rice fields, wet grassland and marshes.
Voice
A thin, high pee or teet, often repeated by the whole flock, also in flight. The song is a soft, barely audible series of clicks and squeaks.
Recording: David Ricardo Rodríguez-Villamil — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
11–12 cm. Compact, with a heavy, pale bluish-grey bill. Head, neck and upper breast black, as are a broad band down the centre of the belly and the undertail coverts. Lower breast and flanks white. Back and wings warm chestnut, rump and tail rufous. The sexes are alike. Young birds are plain warm brown above and light brown below, without a black head, and with a darker bill.
Confusion species
Chestnut Munia Lonchura atricapilla, which may escape from captivity, also has a black head but chestnut underparts without white. Scaly-breasted Munia Lonchura punctulata has a brown head and scaly underparts; young birds of the two species can scarcely be separated and are best identified by the adults in the flock. Native seedeaters, such as Variable Seedeater Sporophila corvina, have a shorter, more rounded bill and lack the combination of black head and chestnut back.
Habitat
Rice fields, wet grassland, freshwater marshes with tall grass and reeds, sugar-cane fields and rank pastures in the lowlands. It eats mainly grass seeds and rice and can occur in large flocks in rice fields. It builds a domed grass nest low in tall grass or reeds.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Native to southern India and Sri Lanka. Introduced to the Caribbean, Venezuela and Japan, among other places. In the guide area widespread and still spreading in the lowlands: mainly in north-western Costa Rica (Guanacaste and Puntarenas), in Belize, northern Honduras, on the Yucatán Peninsula and in Tabasco and Veracruz; also scattered in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and western Panama.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Best found in the rice fields and wet pastures of Guanacaste in Costa Rica and in the lowlands of Belize; flocks fly up low from the grass and drop back in a short distance away.
Conservation status
Globally not threatened (LC). In the guide area an introduced species that is spreading rapidly. It can damage rice crops; little is known about its effects on native seed-eaters.
Scientific name
Lonchura malacca | (Linnaeus, 1766)
Linnaeus described the species in 1766 as Loxia malacca; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Lonchura was introduced in 1832 by Sykes. Lonchura is Greek, from lonkhē 'spear-head' and oura 'tail', after the pointed tail. malacca refers to Malacca on the Malay Peninsula, one of the places originally given as its origin. The specimen the first description was based on came from Belgaum, India.