birding-aus

Superb and Variegated Fairy-wrens

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Subject: Superb and Variegated Fairy-wrens
From: Mark and Amanda Young <>
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2011 10:44:19 +1100
G'day everyone,

Andrew's post below got me thinking about how often I see Superb and
Variegated Fairy-wrens around my local area. I see SFW's quite often, but
hardly ever see VFW, though I thought that this may be because I spend less
time in denser areas where I remember seeing the VFW's and more time in more
open areas where I see the SFW's. There is a rather friendly population at
Longy that I always see in and around the small shrubs and bushes, but in
the past 2 years that I've been frequenting the area I don't remember seeing
a VFW around there.
I'm just wondering if anyone knows if there is must of a difference between
these 2 species and their preferred environments and the food they like etc?
Would I necessarily find SFW where I see VFW and vice versa?

Regards,
Mark

On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 9:58 AM, Andrew Taylor <>wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 06:46:56PM +0930, Chris Watson wrote:
> >   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyUmptgs4sU
>
> I expect Harry Recher is right about most of what he says but he can be
> careless about facts.   In the video he suggests that Superb Fairy Wren
> have gone from abundant to rare in Sydney over the last 40 years - saying
> it was the second bird he saw stepping off the ship in Sydney  but you'd
> to struggle find one now in the suburbs of Sydney.   This is incorrect,
> wrens are still conspicuous in many Sydney suburbs and surveys show this:
> http://www.birdsinbackyards.net/surveys/results-superb-fairy-wren.cfm
> I'm not sure where in Sydney Harry Recher's ship arrived, but you can
> still see wrens at King St Wharf where the cruise ships  dock in the CBD.
>
> Its hard to say how SFW abundance has changed in Sydney suburbia in
> the period Harry Recher is talking about without data like the Backyard
> Bird survey for past decades.  Ricki Coughlan posted here details a few
> years ago of a wren survey on the Northern Beaches where I recall SFW
> were absent or very scarce in quite a few suburbs, but SFW do seem to
> do well in the denser inner suburbs.
>
> I've noticed this carelessness before.  Years ago Harry Recher put in
> a paper: "Red Wattlebird which were abundant in suburban Sydney
> gardens as recently as the 1970s are now rare".  Again not true,
> over much of Sydney,  Red Wattlebirds are common & conspicuous:
> http://www.birdsinbackyards.net/surveys/results-backyards-autumn2006.cfm
>
> Andrew
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