The initial stages of Au adsorption at sub-monolayer coverages on the Si(111)-(7×7) surface at room temperature have been studied by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). At very low Au coverages (Θ ∼ 0.01 monolayers) STM images show that some of the triangular sub-unit cells have slightly larger apparent height. These peculiar features are interpreted as being caused by the redistribution of charge in the 7 × 7 unit cell following the adsorption of Au atoms on Si rest atom sites. STM images suggest that there is a charge transfer from the rest atoms to the adatoms and this charge transfer is different in faulted and unfaulted sub-unit cells. The interpretation of the STM results is found to be consistent with the theoretical predictions.