Invasion of the Spice Finches

They blew in with a fall flock of Red-Winged Blackbirds. The Red-Wings, who often segregate themselves by sex, were an all-male crew. Rowdy, flashing their red epaulets, singing as tunefully as any rusty hinge you’ve ever heard.

But these little birds were scruffy brown finches devoid of field marks. Juveniles, I thought. Society finches. Somebody’s aviary blew down somewhere.

Only…

Society finches, long domesticated, are various. Fawn, and blond, and white, and chocolate. Pied with markings unique to the individual. Some are crested birds who boast full Beatles mops.

These birds were remarkable mainly in how unremarkable they were.

I live in southeast Louisiana. A few days later, a birder who lived to my east — closer to the Louisiana/Mississippi border and the Pearl River Wildlife Management Area — mentioned she’d seen a flock of Scaly-Breasted Munias fly in with her migrating Red-Wings. Others chimed in to say the same.

Mystery solved. I’d seen a post-breeding flock of juvenile Scaly-Breasts.

Except…

The Scaly-Breasted Munia (also known as the Nutmeg Mannikin or Spice Finch) is a wide-ranging little finch native to tropical Asia. It landed on my life list in January 2007 when I observed a long introduced population grazing on the lawn in a park in Honolulu. In late 2015, I also observed it in rural Nepal, where I presume it’s a legitimate native.

What was it doing in my backyard?

Finches on the move

Whatever did we do before Twitter? I dropped into a discussion of the mysterious little finches, which a lot of people had been seeing, and someone linked me to an article in Mississippi Kite called, Establishment and Spread of the Scaly-Breasted Munia (Lonchura punctulata) in Mississippi by Susan Epps and Jason D. Hoeksema.

Beginning in 2010, the Scaly-Breasts were first seen in Diamondhead, Hancock County — Mississippi’s most western coastal county. Then they began to be reported from the other two coastal counties, Harrison and Jackson.

Susan Epps was able to identity the population down to the subspecies level, L. p. punctulata — “native to Pakistan, India, and Sri Lanka.” Beyond that, she found a nearby pet store selling that very subspecies for less than twenty bucks a bird.

The authors also collected reports of other Southern populations. To the east, they’ve been breeding in Florida for over a decade. Another cluster of reports centered on Houston, Texas, hundreds of miles to the west.

An origin story

The Texas birds came with a story.

You see, it has become unfashionable to throw rice at weddings. If you’re a birder, you already know birds don’t explode from eating rice. But, alas, the urban legend claiming they did became wildly popular. To this day, many people continue to believe throwing rice is Wrong and Bad.

Some people swapped to releasing balloons. Uh-oh. That actually is Wrong and Bad. You’re basically releasing wildlife-killing trash into the environment. So people are stepping away from balloons too.

White doves can be hired for release. If they’re the right kind of doves (white Homing Pigeons), they’ll return to their trainer later. All is well.

Alas, not all white doves are Homing Pigeons. Many are inexpensive domesticated Ringneck Doves, fine for pulling from your magician’s hat but about as likely to survive being “released” into the wild as you or I.

So this practice too became controversial.

Thus, in Houston, over the last couple decades or so, some people have chosen to quietly release Scaly-Breasted Munias instead. Finches don’t “home,” and the happy couple or the trainer will not be getting the birds back. But they do seem to be adapting to the wild — at least if you include suburban bird feeders in your definition of the wild. These little cereal eaters do like to get beak deep in some millet.

In their native lands, the birds are known as a rice pest. A new controversy may come if and when the birds march into southwestern Louisiana where rice is grown. But, as long as they’re content to hang out at backyard feeders chowing down on millet, I don’t expect many people to complain. Most people won’t even notice one more tiny brown bird.

At the time the Mississippi Kite article was written, the authors preferred to say the source of the Mississippi birds was unknown.

But a reader can’t help but have her suspicions. That pet shop? That inexpensive price? Somebody’s buying and releasing for wedding luck.

The future of an introduced species

Are Scaly-Breasted Munias now breeding in Louisiana? Specifically, are they breeding in or around my yard? Much earlier in the spring, I was getting visits from a pair, rather than from a flock. Then they went quiet.

Epps reported her Diamondhead birds bred in late April and May — about the time my birds seemed to disappear.

If they have a nest, they’re very careful not to let me find it. Or, perhaps, they’ve gone back to build it in Mississippi.

I watch. I wait. And I wonder. Maybe you should be watching your feeders too. The image below compares wild juvenile Scaly-breasted Munias (one of those Little Brown Jobs without much in the way of field marks) to some of my domestic-bred Society Finches. In bad light, or if you only catch a glimpse, you could confuse your new Spice Finch overlords with lost Societies, but you'll figure it out eventually.

Need the live links to those Creative Commons Photos? Feature Image: “Scaly breasted Munia” by T_Monk / Bottom Left Image SB Munia Juveniles by Lip Kee / Both items CC BY 2.0

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