White-headed Munia Lonchura maja Scientific name definitions

11 cm; 11–14 g. Male has head white to smoky pinkish, nape brownish-grey, upperparts, including upperwing , dark brown, uppertail-coverts glossy coppery brown, tail dark brown, some rectrices edged copper; throat whitish, breast greyish-brown, flanks brown, belly and undertail-coverts black; iris dark brown, black orbital ring; bill light blue-grey, with whitish tip and cutting edges; legs grey. Female is very like male, often not fully separable, but crown and nape somewhat darker and underparts paler. Juvenile has head and upperparts brown, chin and throat sandy white, merging with brownish head, underparts buff, bill grey.

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S Thailand, S Vietnam, Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore, Sumatra (including satellite islands), Java and Bali. Introduced in Japan (Honshu) and Ryukyu Is (Okinawa).

Open grassland, rice fields, marshes and reedbeds, upland grassy areas, including fallow weeds, Imperata grassland, cultivation and village gardens; large flocks roost in reedbeds. From sea-level to 1500 m; in Malay Peninsula, those at higher elevations are moving through area.

Resident. Flocks move about after young have fledged.

Rice seeds (mainly at sub-ripe milky stage), and seeds of smaller grasses, sedges (Cyperaceae) and dicot herbs (Amaranthus and the like). Nestlings fed with unripe seeds. Takes seeds from the ground and while perched; climbs on stems, sometimes weighing them down in order to reach seedheads. Forages in pairs and sometimes small groups during breeding; at other times in flocks, small or large, and often mixed with other munias. May trap-line potential feeding sites.

Call a soft "preet" or "prit", male call higher in pitch and longer than that of female; in nest, one bird coaxes another to join at roosting with a purring "wheeze, waaaaargh waaaargh". Song a series of clicks and then a drawn-out "weeeee heeheeeheeeheeeheee".

Season Feb–Oct in Malay Peninsula, Feb–Jul in Singapore and Feb in Java; wild-caught males maintained large testes for as long as 54 and 66 weeks, and thus (as with L. punctulata and L. atricapilla) potentially able to respond immediately to new breeding opportunity. Sometimes nests in loose colonies. In courtship, male holds grass in bill, and in upright posture, with feathers of head and body fluffed, bill held forward and open while singing, he bobs to female. Nest a ball with entrance hole beneath a shelf or with short spout, made from grass, lined with fine grass parts, built 1–7 m above ground (mostly below 4 m) in low shrub, rice, tall grass, palm or garden plant; sometimes takes over covered nest of another species. Clutch 3–7 eggs, usually 4–6; incubation period 12–13 days; nestling skin pink at hatching, naked or with tufts of down, bluish-white gape-flange bordered with black, yellow palate with black arc, and black streak on each side of palate near gape, unmarked tongue and a short mark near bill tip; nestling period 21 days.

Not globally threatened. Uncommon to locally fairly common in SE Asia; fairly common and widespread in Sumatra (and islands), Java and Bali. Birds of this species in Borneo presumably of captive origin; those reported in S Vietnam (Cochinchina) might also be of captive origin. Following introduction, appears to have become established as a breeding bird on Okinawa, and may also be established N of Osaka, in Japan. Large numbers trapped for trade, especially in Java.