canberrabirds

Fashonable fairy-wren

To: "Bird List" <>
Subject: Fashonable fairy-wren
From: "David Rosalky" <>
Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 23:45:31 +1000
On the corner of Blackall St and Macquarie St in Barton is a group of Superb Fairy-wrens.  I was watching three today:  one a male in breeding plumage, one a female, and one a male in rather fashionable, or perhaps unfashionable, eclipse plumage.
 
Its tail was very blue - I am more used to seeing non-breeding males with a "muddy" sort of blue tail - but that by itself was not particularly noteworthy.  What caught my eye was that the bird's head and face were off-white with patches of brown, in particular a brown band across the nape.  There were also white patches in the primary remiges and on the rump.  I don't believe that the effect was a mid-moult from eclipse to breeding plumage.  These was no blue or black appearing on the head, face or breast.
 
Just a guy trying to be different to attract the girls, perhaps.
 
David Rosalky
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