Birds that appear outside their normal range are known as vagrants. This post summarizes up to date published sight records of vagrants of the family Estrildidae (Munias & allies) in Sri Lanka.
Chestnut Munia (Lonchura atricapilla)
While including this bird to his country list base on a remark made by Layard that he found this Munia at Galle, Legge suspected that its presence in the Galle district must have been owing to a flock escaped from a ship at Galle harbor (Legge 1880 : 850). However during 1977-1981 pest species survey it was seen by Dr Sarath Kotagama in the Hingurana and Udawalawe areas and again recorded at Ridiyagama by A.J. Vincent (Kotagama S. & Ratnavira G. 2010:.318)
References:
Kotagama, S., Ratnavira, G. 2010. An illustrated Guide to the Birds of Sri Lanka. Field Ornithology Group of Sri Lanka, Colombo.
Legge V., 1880. A History of the birds of Ceylon 1983 second edition.
References:
Kotagama, S., Ratnavira, G. 2010. An illustrated Guide to the Birds of Sri Lanka. Field Ornithology Group of Sri Lanka, Colombo.
Legge V., 1880. A History of the birds of Ceylon 1983 second edition.
As per Mr. Jagath Gunawardana inclusion of this bird in Sri Lankan checklist is an issue.Some of the Black-headed Munias(L.malaccca) show the chestnut underparts and hence could be mistaken as L.atricapilla.In 1991,Mr.Deepal Warakagoda found two specimens in pet shops which,upon measuring their bio-metrics,were found to be variants of the Black-headed Manias. Mr. Jagath Gunawardana also found such individuals,both in the field and in pet shops at the time.
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