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The red avadavat (Amandava amandava), red munia or strawberry finch, is a sparrow-sized bird of the family Estrildidae. It is found in the open fields and grasslands of tropical Asia and is popular as a cage bird due to the colourful plumage of the males in their breeding season. It breeds in the Indian Subcontinent in the monsoon season. The species name of amandava and the common name of avadavat are derived from the city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat, India, from where these birds were exported into the pet trade in former times.
Red avadavats are found mainly on flat plains, in places with tall grasses or crops, often near water. The species has four named subspecies. The nominate subspecies is called amandava and is found in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan; the Burmese form is called flavidiventris (also found in parts of China, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam); the population further east in Java is called punicea and in Cambodia, decouxi.
Introduced populations exist in several locations worldwide: southern Spain, Brunei, Fiji, Egypt, Malaysia, the United States, Bahrain, Guadeloupe, Iran, Italy, Réunion, Malaysia, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Martinique, Portugal, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore and Hawaii.
