Estrildidae Waxbills and Allies
Version: 1.0 — Published March 4, 2020
Introduction
These tiny finches of Africa and southern Asia are well known in the pet trade. Admired for their striking plumage and their soft simple songs, estrildids are easy to keep owing to their fondness for seeds. Because they require only seeds to feed their young as well, they are also relatively easy to breed. With bold colors and contrasting broad-brush accents, these lively, flamboyant birds occupy a broad variety of habitats. Gregarious and often colonial, most estrildids are “contact species,” huddling together when roosting and often preening their partners. They usually build large domed nests of grass, and in Africa (and only there) the nests of most species are parasitized by the family’s sister clade, the viduine finches.
Habitat
Estrildids live in a wide variety of habitats, most commonly open, ranging from grasslands, savanna, and marshes, to open forests and rainforests.
Diet and Foraging
Most estrildids feed primarily on seeds, with grass seed making up an important part of the diet for many species. In addition, berries, figs, nectar, and filamentous algae are taken by some species, as are insects when they are abundant (e.g., flying termites and ants when emerging) and snails. When foraging for insects, estrildids may glean, probe, or flycatch.
Breeding
The estrildid finches are monogamous with biparental care. Much of what is known of their breeding and courtship behavior comes from captive breeding. Nests are a woven, covered structure built of grass that may be placed on the ground, low in a bush, in a tree, or, in the case of the Gouldian Finch Chloebia gouldiae, in a tree cavity. Both male and female construct nests, with the male often bringing nesting material to the female. Some species build no nest at all, instead using abandoned nests of other species, often those of ploceid weavers. Cooperative breeding is known to occur rarely. In some cases, multiple females will lay their eggs in the same nest. Females typically lay 2 to 6 eggs. Both males and females incubate the eggs and feed the chicks, provisioning the nestlings with seeds throughout their development. Incubation typically takes 12 to 14 days. The chicks fledge after 18 to 21 days in the nest, and the young are fed for up to a couple weeks post-fledging.
Conservation Status
Habitat loss and collection for the pet trade are the primary threats facing the 14 species (10%) of estrildids that are of conservation concern (6 NT, 7 VU, 1 EN). The endangered Gouldian Finch Chloebia gouldiae of northern Australia lives in a mosaic of burned and unburned patches of arid woodland and grassland and is affected by shifting fire regimes and feral herbivores across its broad but diffuse range. Many of the vulnerable species have tiny ranges and populations: Shelley’s Crimsonwing Cryptospiza shelleyi from a small area in the Albertine Rift region in East Africa, Anambra Waxbill Estrilda poliopareia from a few localities in southern Nigeria, Pink-billed Parrotfinch Erythrura kleinschmidti from two islands in the Fijian archipelago, Green-faced Parrotfinch Erythrura viridifacies from only five localities in the Philippines, and Gray-banded Mannikin Lonchura vana from the Arfak Mountains in northwestern New Guinea. Most of these are sensitive to the destruction of forest habitats, but the waxbill is a grassland species that would appear likely to benefit from habitat changes in the Niger delta, but is not doing so. The other two vulnerable species, the Green Avadavat Amandava formosa of India and the Java Sparrow Lonchura oryzivora of Indonesia, had larger ranges but both are now rare and declining. Sensitive to pesticide use and changing land management practices in the grassland areas they frequent, both species have also been trapped extensively for the cage-bird trade.
Systematics History
Estrildidae is part of the superfamily Passeroidea. Within this large radiation of oscine passerines, the estrildid finches are likely sister to Viduidae (Sorenson et al. 2004, Treplin et al. 2008, Fjeldså et al. 2010). When members of Viduidae are not included in phylogenies, Estrildidae appears sister to Ploceidae (Ericson & Johansson 2003, Johansson et al. 2008b). At times, Viduidae has been included within Estrildidae, but we maintain them as separate families in keeping with many recent publications (Clements et al. 2014, Cracraft 2014). Within Estrildidae, the two main subfamilies, Lonchurinae and Estrildinae, are sister clades and the listing of genera in them follows Sorenson et al. (2004).
Conservation Status
Least Concern |
87%
|
---|---|
Near Threatened |
2.9%
|
Vulnerable |
2.9%
|
Endangered |
1.4%
|
Critically Endangered |
0%
|
Extinct in the Wild |
0%
|
Extinct |
0%
|
Not Evaluated |
0%
|
Data Deficient |
0.72%
|
Unknown |
5.1%
|
Data provided by IUCN (2023) Red List. More information