A Superb Fairywren
Australia doesn't have a Superb Owl championship game, so fairywrens pick up the slack
The watchful puffball in today’s gif is a superb fairywren. As the name suggests, they are a member of the wren family, a close relative of the splendid fairywren. My goodness, that’s quite an extended family of prestigious wrens, by the sound of it. They will live anywhere in their region that has a bit of undergrowth of shelter, such as grasslands, areas with shrubbery, forests and woodlands, and even home gardens. The footage of this little fella was shot by Navarre Marshall who explains:
Superb Fairywrens live in Southeastern Australia and are found both in the wild and suburban environments. Breeding males boast impressive colors that make it appear like a whole different bird. Nonbreeding males, which are what I saw, look more like the female but with a blue tail and without the red mask.
Superb fairywrens form territorial family groups consisting of a breeding pair with up to seven helpers, which might include males raised in the same territory in previous years. They are cooperative breeders, with all members of the family group helping to feed and raise the young. Their social structure is interesting in that they form monogamous pairs, but at the same time are sexually promiscuous, whereby each partner will mate with other individuals and often assist in the raising of chicks from such couplings. Male superb fairywrens have been called “the least faithful birds in the world” with about 75% of young sired by males from outside the social group and breeding females having up to 13 suitors within a half-hour. My goodness, it’s a bird soap opera in the making! But it seems to work well for them. The Aussies sure love ‘em, voting them in as the Australian Bird of the Year in 2021.
Source for today’s gif is below. Marshall’s Instagram channel is pretty cool and worth a scroll. He chronicles bird sounds along his travels and his recent post about localized birdsong dialects is fascinating. I’ve put that below too because I think you all will really like it.
Find out more about this species here:
Australian Museum: Superb Fairy-wren
We had a Grey Catbird visiting the birdbath this morning: https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/grycat/cur/introduction
Not just a fairywren, a superb fairywren.
Beautiful!