New-to-me bird! The scaly-breasted munia or spotted munia (Lonchura punctulata) is a finch known in the pet trade as nutmeg mannikin or spice finch. The species is endemic to Asia, but feral populations have established in Puerto Rico and Hispaniola, as well as parts of Australia and the US.

Here’s an interesting fact: L. punctulata frequently serves as a brood host for the parasitic pin-tailed whydah in Southern California, where both have become feral. In this setting, the munia raises the whydah’s chicks as if they were its own. This interaction is unusual since the two species do not naturally coexist in their native habitats—the whydah is from Africa—and have no evolutionary history as parasite and host. Now I want to see a pin-tailed whydah!