Red-winged fairywren
The red-winged fairywren is a species of passerine bird in the Australasian wren family, Maluridae. It is non-migratory and endemic to the southwestern corner of Western Australia. The male adopts a brilliantly coloured breeding plumage, with an iridescent silvery-blue crown.
About Red-winged fairywren in brief
The red-winged fairywren is a species of passerine bird in the Australasian wren family, Maluridae. It is non-migratory and endemic to the southwestern corner of Western Australia. The male adopts a brilliantly coloured breeding plumage, with an iridescent silvery-blue crown, ear coverts and upper back, red shoulders, contrasting with a black throat, grey-brown tail and wings and pale underparts. Non-breeding males, females and juveniles have predominantly grey- brown plumage. No separate subspecies are recognised for this species. It belongs to a group of four very similar species known collectively as chestnut-shouldered fairy wrens. The other three species are the lovely Fairywren, the variegated fairyw Ren, and the blue-breasted fairy Wren. Though the red- Winged Fairyw Ren is locally common, there is evidence of a decline in numbers. It lives in the shelter of scrubby vegetation in temperate wetter forests dominated by karri trees, remaining close to cover to avoid predators. A variety of vocalisations and visual displays have been recorded for communication and courtship in the species. Singing is used to advertise territory, and birds can distinguish other individuals by song alone. The red-Winged Fairy Wren was described by ornithologist John Gould in 1837, who gave it the bird’s specific name which is derived from the Latin term elegans ‘elegant’ He noted its location as the eastern coast of Australia, but corrected his error after further collections by John Gilbert from south-western Australia.
In fact there is little variation in size or colour within the species between populations or individuals. The species is one of eleven species of the genus Malurus, commonly known as fairywerens, found in Australia and lowland New Guinea. Like other fairywRens, the red Winged fairyWren is related to the honeyeaters and the pardalotes in a large superfamily, Meliphagoidea. The blue Winged Wren is the most closely related of the four species of fairywenns. It was once thought to be a member of the Old World flycatcher family, or the warbler family, Sylviidae, before being placed in the newly recognised Australasia wrenFamily in 1975. After the last glacial period, warmer, humid conditions allowed birds to spread southwards; this group, occupying central Australia east to the Eyre Peninsula, became the bluewinged FairyWren. Cooler conditions and drier conditions resulted in this being isolated as a separate species and evolving into a separate and well-established species. The variegate fairywen became the variegated fairyWen, while the blue winged Fairy wren became the red winged fairy-wren. In the last 12,000 years, warmer conditions allowed this group to spread further southwards.
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This page is based on the article Red-winged fairywren published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 06, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
