I couldn’t resist taking video of Crimson Finches while birdwatching along the edge of Lily Creek Lagoon in Kununnura, on the eastern edge of the Kimberley in Western Australia earlier this year.
The Crimson Finch (Neochmia phaeton) occurs in tropical Australia and a small area of New Guinea. ‘Finch’ is of course a misnomer. It, along with all Australian ‘finches’ is an estrildid, like the waxbills of Africa. Seed forms the bulk of their diet but insects, as a richer protein supply, are taken in the breeding season. All the books say they occur along water courses and those in the video were in the thick vegetation surrounding the lagoon.
The males in particular were shining in the sunlight and were living up to their specific name of ‘phaeton’ - Greek for radiant or shining. Three subspecies have been defined and the ones we saw are in the range of N. phaeton phaeton.
Here is the distribution map of the species adapted from the late Derek Goodwin’s book, Estrildid Finches of the World, published in 1982 by the British Museum (Natural History):
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