They stick together and fly as a flock, twisting in flight like Starlings when they fly quiet high and fast. My own observations show them to be very social, flock bird. At my workplace at Eastern Creek, NSW, they seem to have been replaced by the Spice Finch in recent years.
They were eating the Winter Grass seed heads. In winter, I have watched them in large numbers feeding on cut grass lawns along Correen Ave, Penrith, NSW, hopping along the ground mixed in between Red-Rumped Parrots. Both breeding locations are over, near, or in, water.
Locally I’ve found them breeding in summer, on farmland behind Penrith’s Beef and Barramundi Restaurant, and also at the duck ponds at the western end of Richmond, NSW. They know how to stay cool in the heat and deliberately sit out of the sun. In recent years, I have seen them on the North Coast in valleys behind Coffs Harbour, NSW, again sitting quietly in groups amongst Blackberry and Lantana growing beside farm roads. Thirty years ago in the Kimberley’s, I came across them along the creeks and rivers of the Mitchell Plateau, WA usually in shady Pandanus draped out over the water. I have seen the Chestnut-breasted Munia (Lonchura castaneothorax) many times in the wild, both locally and nationally.
