Scaly-breasted Munia/ Spotted Munia
Lonchura punctulata
Forests of India & South East Asia
Located in the central stretch of the Deccan Plateau, Telangana has sub-tropical climate and the terrain consists mostly of hills, mountain ranges, and thick dense forests covering an area of 27,292 km². The annual rainfall ranges between 1,100 mm to 1,200 mm and the annual temperature varies from 15 C to 45 C. The State is drained by a number of rivers which include Godavari and Krishna.
Telangana is endowed with rich diversity of flora and fauna. It has dense teak forests on the northern part along the banks of river Godavari. As per the Champion & Seth Classification of Forest Types (1968), the forests in Telangana belong to three Forest Type groups, which are further divided into 12 Forest Types. The State Government has taken up a massive greening programme, 'Telangana Ku Harita Haram' in the State to plant and protect 230 crore seedlings over a period of 4 years. This initiative aims at achieving the twin objectives of increasing the forest cover and reduce pressure on the existing forest resources, through massive community participation by Vana Samrakshna Samithis (VSS) and Eco-Development Committees (EDCs) in Protected Areas and Watershed Development Committees in the Watershed areas. Recorded Forest Area (RFA) in the State is 26,904 km² of which 20,353 km² is Reserved Forest, 5,939 km² is Protected Forest and 612 km² is Unclassed Forests. In Telangana, during the period 1st January 2015 to 5th February 2019, a total of 9,420 hectares of forest land was diverted for non-forestry purposes under the Forest Conservation Act, 1980 (MoEF & CC, 2019). As per the information received from the State during that last two years, 12,730 ha of plantations including avenue plantations in the State.
Three National Parks and nine Wildlife Sanctuaries constitute the Protected Area network of the State covering 5.08% of its geographical area and our focus area today is the northern fringe of the Nallamalla forest located both in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. It is part of the Eastern Ghats. The Nagarjunsagar-Srisailam Tiger Reserve, the largest tiger reserve in India spread over the five districts of Kurnool, Prakasam, Guntur, Nalgonda and Mahabub Nagar falls in its precincts.
Today we return to these beautiful forests in search of the Scaly-breasted Munia. This is an attractive small songbird of grasslands, gardens, fields, and agricultural areas. Native to India and Southeast Asia, with introduced populations scattered elsewhere around the world. Typical adults are a dark chestnut-brown above, white below, with a fine dark scaly pattern on the belly. These munia are typically found in small flocks, sometimes mixed with other species of munia like the Indian Silverbill or White-throated Munia.
Ananthagiri Hills & Forest Range
Ananthagiri Hills is located in the Vikarabad district of Telangana. It is one of two major reserve forest blocks of the Vikarabad Forest Range the other one being the Damagundam Forest Reserve and each of these forest blocks is spread over a 10 square kilometre area. While the limits of Damagundam begin from Manneguda, a small town about 60 kms from Hyderabad, Ananthagiri block begins where the limits of Vikarabad end near the railway tracks. The Ananthagiri hills and their dense forests host many wild species like the Nilgai, Sambhar, Black Buck, Chital, Chowsingha, Chinkara, Wild Goats and many more. The streams from these hills flows into Osman Sagar, also known as the Gandipet lake, and Himayath Sagar. It is one of the denser forests in Telangana and is the birthplace (about 5 kilometers from the town of Vikarabad) of the Musi river, also known as the Muchkunda River, which flows through the capital city, Hyderabad. The Musi River after originating in these Ananthagiri Hills, about 90 kilometers to the west of Hyderabad and flowing due east for almost all of its course joins the Krishna River at Wadapally in the Nalgonda district after covering a total distance of about 240 km. Also in these forests is the Sri Anantha Padmanabha Swamy Temple, a Hindu temple dedicated to the Lord Vishnu.
According to the Skanda Purana it is believed this temple was installed by Rishi Markandeya in the Dvapara Yuga. Attracted by the peaceful atmosphere of the Ananthagiri Hills Rishi Markandeya came here for yoga sadhana. It is believed that the Rishi, on the strength of his spiritual powers, would visit Kasi daily for a bath in the sacred Ganges through a cave. One day he was not able to visit Kasi because the Dwadasi was in the early hours of the morning. Because of this miss the Lord Vishnu appeared, gave Darshan, in a dream and arranged for the Ganges to flow so the Rishi could take his bath daily without having to travel.
About 400 years back the Nizams of Hyderabad used these forests as their hunting grounds. It is said that the lord Vishnu in the form of Sri Anantha Padmanabha Swamy appeared in a dream and asked the then Nizam, Mir Osman Ali Khan, to build a temple for him. About 20 kilometers from the temple lies the Nagasamudram Lake or Kotipally Reservoir, a masonry dam.
It is one of the earliest habitat areas with ancient caves, medieval fort structures and temples that illustrate the antiquity of this area.
I love these forests as they are home to innumerable bird species, some of which I have photographed and many more which I am yet to photograph. I only hope the so called “bird and nature lovers” who come here to photograph and achieve social media fame adhere to ethical birding practices and refrain from using calls, especially owl calls, and bait.
Read about some of the other birds I’ve photographed in these beautiful forests.
Scaly-breasted Munia/ Spotted Munia
The Scaly-breasted Munia or Spotted Munia (Lonchura punctulata), known in the pet trade as the Nutmeg Mannikin or Spice Finch, is a sparrow-sized estrildid finch native to tropical Asia. A species of the genus Lonchura, it was formally described and named by Carl Linnaeus in 1758. Its name is based on the distinct scale-like feather markings on the breast and belly. An attractive small songbird of grasslands, gardens, fields, and agricultural areas. It is native to India and Southeast Asia, with introduced populations scattered elsewhere around the world. Typical adults are a dark chestnut-brown above, white below, with a fine dark scaly pattern on the belly and a dark conical bill. Juveniles are a plain brown all over with slightly paler underparts. They are typically found in small flocks, sometimes mixed with other species of munia like the Indian Silverbill or White-throated Munia. The species has 11 subspecies across its range, which differ slightly in size and color.
Estrildidae, or estrildid finches, is a family of small seed-eating passerine birds of the Old World tropics and Australasia. They comprise species commonly known as munias, mannikins, firefinches, parrotfinches and waxbills. Despite the word "finch" being included in the common names of some species, they are not closely related to birds with this name in other families, such as the Fringillidae, Emberizidae or Passerellidae.
The Scaly-breasted Munia eats mainly grass seeds apart from berries and small insects. They forage in flocks and communicate with soft calls and whistles. The species is highly social and may sometimes roost with other species of munias. This species is found in tropical plains and grasslands. Breeding pairs construct dome-shaped nests using grass or bamboo leaves.
The species is endemic to Asia and occurs from India and Sri Lanka east to Indonesia and the Philippines (where it is called mayang pakíng). It has been introduced into many other parts of the world, and feral populations have established in Puerto Rico and Hispaniola, as well as parts of Australia, and the United States of America, with sightings in California. The bird is listed as of least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The Scaly-breasted Munia is about 10–12·5 cm long and weighs between 12–16 grams. The nominate subspecies has its head to foreneck in a deep reddish-brown colour, darker on the fore face and especially on the chin and throat, slightly paler and duller on the mantle, back and wings, with barely noticeable barring and often more noticeable pale shaft streaks. It has a barred dark brown and whitish or yellowish shade on its rump, dull golden-yellow to orange-brown barred darker colours on the upper tail coverts. The tail is similar to remiges in color, but central rectrices have a strong golden tinge; the breast and belly is white with black feather edges, giving a scaled or scalloped appearance. The iris is dark brown to brownish-red and the eye ring is a dark gray. The bill is blackish with the lower mandible often a paler bluish-gray at the base and gray legs. The sexes are alike. The juvenile is a brownish-buff above and buff to whitish below with a black bill.
Over its large range there are 11 recognised subspecies. These include the nominate form found in the plains of the Indian Subcontinent, including Pakistan, India, Iran, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The name lineoventer was formerly used for the Indian population. Other populations include subundulata from the eastern Himalayas, yunnanensis of southern China, topela of Thailand, cabanisi of the Philippines and fretensis of Singapore and Sumatra. Island populations include nisoria (Java, Bali, Lombok, Sumbawa), particeps (Sulawesi), baweana (Bawean Island), sumbae (Sumba) and blasii (Flores, Timor and Tanimbar). It has also been introduced (mainly the subspecies topela) in Seychelles, Mascarene Islands, Japan, Australia, Palau Islands (extirpated), Caroline Islands, Hawaiian Islands, Tahiti, West Indies (Cuba, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Hispaniola), Guadeloupe; nominate subspecies in S USA (California, Florida).
In this blog I have featured two of the subspecies - Lonchura punctulata punctulata found in India and the subspecies Lonchura punctulata fretensis of Singapore. Subspecies differ mainly in color of upper tail coverts and color and pattern of underparts, the nominate being the only one having black and white underparts with single black marking on edge of feathers, lower mandible entirely bluish gray in some subspecies.
Lonchura punctulata punctulata (Linnaeus, 1758) – northern Pakistan, India (except northeast), Nepal terai and Sri Lanka
Lonchura punctulata subundulata (Godwin-Austen, 1874) – Bhutan, Bangladesh, northeast India (Assam) and west Myanmar
Lonchura punctulata yunnanensis Parkes, 1958 – southern China (southeast Xizang, south Sichuan, Yunnan) and north Myanmar
Lonchura punctulata topela (R. Swinhoe, 1863) – southern Myanmar, Thailand, southeast China (Taiwan), Hainan Islands, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam
Lonchura punctulata cabanisi (Sharpe, 1890) – north and west Philippines (Luzon, Mindoro, Calauit, Palawan, Panay, Negros, Cebu, Mindanao) and northern Borneo (coastal west Sabah and Brunei)
Lonchura punctulata fretensis (Kloss, 1931) – south Malay Peninsula, Singapore, Sumatra and Nias Islands
Lonchura punctulata nisoria (Temminck, 1830) – southern Borneo (western & southern Kalimantan), Java, Bali, and western Lesser Sundas (Lombok, Sumbawa)
Lonchura punctulata sumbae Mayr, 1944 – Sumba, in western Lesser Sundas
Lonchura punctulata blasii (Stresemann, 1912) – central & eastern Lesser Sundas (Flores east to Timor and Tanimbar Islands)
Lonchura punctulata baweana Hoogerwerf, 1963 – Bawean Islands, off northeast Java
Lonchura punctulata particeps (Riley, 1920) – Sulawesi
The subspecies holmesi (southeast Borneo) is sometimes recognised.
Scaly-breasted Munias are found in a diverse range of habitats but are usually close to water and grasslands. In India, they are especially common in paddy fields where they are considered a minor pest on account of their feeding on grain. They are found mainly on the plains, but can be observed in the foothills of the Himalayas, in which they may be present at altitudes near 2,500 m, and in the Nilgiris, where they are found at altitudes up to 2,100 m during the summer. In Pakistan, they are restricted to a narrow region from Swat in the west to Lahore, avoiding the desert zone, and then occurring again in India east of an area between Ludhiana and Mount Abu. The species has also been observed in Kashmir, though this is rare.
Outside their native range, escaped birds frequently establish themselves in areas with a suitable climate and can then colonize new areas nearby. Escaped cage-birds established in the wild and such populations have been recorded in the West Indies (Puerto Rico since 1971), Hawaii, Japan and southern United States, mainly in Florida and California. In Oahu, Hawaii, they compete for habitats with the tricolored munia and tend to be rare where this competitor is present. The species has been introduced to other parts of the world due to its popularity as a cage bird and populations have established in the wild.
These munias are resident birds with some local movements influenced by ripening of grain crops. Their diet includes seeding grasses (including rice at milky stages, Cynodon, Panicum auritum, Digitaria marginata, Pennisetum purpureum, Eleusine), weeds, casuarinas (Casuarina); also berries (including those of Lantana); takes nutrient-rich filamentous algae (of genus Spirogyra) in shallow water; some insects and household scraps are also taken. It forages on the ground and in vegetation and climbs stems to reach seeding heads and takes fallen seeds on ground. They exploit casuarina cones high in crown. They forage in social groups throughout year, also in larger flocks outside breeding season; sometimes mixes with other estrildids.
Scaly-breasted Munias form flocks of as many as 100 birds. Individuals communicate with calls that include a short whistle, variations of kitty-kitty-kitty, and a sharp chipping alarm note. They sometimes flick their tails and wings vertically or horizontally while hopping about. The tail flicking motion may have evolved from a locomotory intention movement. The exaggerated version of the tail flicking movement may have undergone ritualization. As a social signal, tail flicking in several other species acts as a signal indicating the intent to fly and helps keep flocks together.
When roosting communally, scaly-breasted munia sit side by side in close contact with each other. The outermost bird often jostles towards the center. Birds in a flock sometimes preen each other, with the soliciting bird usually showing its chin. Allopreening is usually limited to the face and neck. The scaly-breasted munia is rarely hostile but birds will sometimes quarrel without any ritualized posturing. They breed throughout year and in India mainly during the monsoon season between May and September.
The Scaly-breasted Munia is an abundant species and is therefore classified as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. The species occupies an extremely large range, and its population, while still unquantified, is large and stable. The Scaly-breasted Munia is not globally threatened and is common to very common throughout most of its range. However, some populations are dwindled due to the increase of bird cagings. In many areas it is regarded as an agricultural pest, feeding in large flocks on cultivated cereals such as rice. In Southeast Asia, the scaly-breasted munia is trapped in large numbers for Buddhist ceremonies, but most birds are later released.
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