Red Avadavat - collecting nest material

[Kaustuv Chatterjee]

Shot in Basai, Hayarana. This beauty was busy collecting material for its nest. The species name of amandava and the common name of avadavat are derived from the city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat from where these birds were exported into the pet trade in former times

Shot with the Nikon D90, Nikkor 300 mm f4, at 300mm, ISO 400, 1/800s - F/7.1

[Debasis Bose]

Beautifully caught by your lens Kaustuv. We commonly called as red munia and in english strawberry finch. During the Cenozoic era, red munia diverged from the green munia while evolving somewhere in the Indian plate and then moving intoother continents and regions. Another pecularity of these birds are that their beak begins to turn red from May and darkens during November and December then turns rapidly to black in April and the beak change of colour cycle continues.

[Abhishek Jamalabad]

Nice behaviour record with good eye contact. Was it possible to go lower?

TFS. Thanks Kaustuv and Debasisji for the interesting info.

[Mrudul Godbole]

Cute bird. Nice to sight it with nesting material. Agree a lower angle if possible would have added to the composition. Thanks for sharing.

Debasis, thanks for sharing the detailed information.

[Roopak Gangadharan]

Nice image and interesting info

TFS
Roopak

[Murugan Anantharaman]

Nicely captured image of the bird while in action. Interesting info by Debasis da too. The strawberry finches have adapted themselves wherever they have settled, nicely. I have seen finches comfortably placed in snow abroad as well as in different places in India. Thanks for sharing.