Red-browed Finch

Australia has about a dozen species of ‘grass-finches’: small, often colourful and brightly plumaged birds with conical bills that are suited for their primary diet of grass seeds.

Red-browed Finches have a lengthy distribution down the eastern seaboard, from Cape York to the Vic-SA border. It’s a versatile bird in regard to habitat as long as there is plenty of seeding grasses nearby.  This charming little bird is well represented in West Gippsland, often seen in parks and gardens in busy urban locations, so long as there is some dense vegetation nearby in which to escape.

Small, sociable flocks are frequently seen feeding on the ground and when disturbed, they fly off to some nearby scrub and wait for the disturbance to subside before returning in ones and twos back to their ‘dinner table’.

The Red-browed Finch has a barely audible, high-pitched, repeated ‘seeet’ call.

Red brows build a large, untidy spherical to bottle-shaped nest of grasses in a shrub or dense tree, seldom more than several metres above the ground. Often, breeding pairs seem to build their nests in close proximity to one another. They breed in spring to early summer and can have more than one brood in a season.

The Red-browed Finch is a sedentary species.