Superb fairywren

The superb fairywren is a passerine bird in the Australasian wren family, Maluridae. It is a sedentary and territorial species, exhibiting a high degree of sexual dimorphism. The male in breeding plumage has a striking bright blue forehead, ear coverts, mantle, and tail. It has adapted well to the urban environment and is common in suburban Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and Brisbane.

About Superb fairywren in brief

The superb fairywren is a passerine bird in the Australasian wren family, Maluridae. It is a sedentary and territorial species, exhibiting a high degree of sexual dimorphism. The male in breeding plumage has a striking bright blue forehead, ear coverts, mantle, and tail, with a black mask and black or dark blue throat. Six subspecies groups are recognized: three larger and darker forms from Tasmania, Flinders and King Island respectively, and three smaller and paler forms from mainland Australia and Kangaroo Island. The bird can be found in almost any area that has at least a little dense undergrowth for shelter, including grasslands with scattered shrubs, moderately thick forest, woodland, heaths, and domestic gardens. It has adapted well to the urban environment and is common in suburban Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and Brisbane. It was previously classified as a member of the Old World flycatcher family Muscicapidae and later as a warbler family Sylviidae before being placed in the newly recognised Maluraceae in 1975. In his 1982 monograph, Schodde proposed a southern origin for the common and splendid ancestor of the superb fairy wrens. At some time in the past it was split into south-western and south-eastern sub-species. In the east, the superbwren spread into Tasmania during a glacial period when the sea level was low and the island was connected with the rest of the continent via a cyane bridge.

This gave the splendid forms more able to spread into inland areas, once more than the southwest was drier than the drier southwest. Other alternative names for the superb Fairywren include the Australian fairywRen, blue wren, superb blue fairyw Ren, and superb blue Wren. Like other fairywenns, it is unrelated to the true wren. It eats mostly insects and supplements its diet with seeds. Male wrenS pluck yellow petals and display them to females as part of a courtship display. The superb fairyWren is one of eleven species of the genus Malurus, commonly known as fairywerens, found in Australia and lowland New Guinea. The species is also related to the purple-crowned fairy Wren of northwestern Australia and to the blue-plumaged wren of southern Australia and the variegated fairywreen of northern Australia. The birds are socially monogamous and sexually promiscuous, meaning that although they form pairs between one male and one female, each partner will mate with other individuals and even assist in raising the young from such pairings. In Australia, the bird is known as muruduwin to the local Eora and Darug inhabitants of the Sydney basin and the Gunai call it deeydgun, meaning “little bird with long tail” The bird has also been called Mormon wren,. The Ngarrindjeri people of the Murray River and Coorong regions call it waatji pulyeri, meaning “little one of the wa atji bush”

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