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Australian Wildlife

  Red-winged Fairy-wren (Malurus elegans)





Red-winged Fairy-wren | Malurus elegans photo
Red-winged Fairy-wren male in breeding plumage - Margaret River riverside walk

Image by Cas Liber - License: Public Domain.    (view image details)







BIRD FACTS

Description
Breeding male: head blue, ear coverts paler. Upper back blue; lower back black. Wing coverts chestnut; rest of wings brown. Tail dull blue. Face, throat and breast black glossed with blue; rest of underparts white. Adult female: mostly dull brown tinged with reddish brown; underparts whitish.

Breeding from September to January. Nest a coarse dome of bark, leaves and grass usually concealed in dense vegetation near the ground. The clutch comprises two or three white eggs dotted with brown. Its territorial song is a reeling trill.

Author credit: R.E. Johnstone / Western Australian Museum

Habitat
Forest undergrowth, especially Melaleuca and other waterside thickets.

Food
Carnivore

Range
South-western Australia

distribution map showing range of Malurus elegans in Australia

Credits:
Map is from Atlas of Living Australia website at https://biocache.ala.org.au licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.


Species Description is from Museums Field Guide, Atlas of Living Australia at website at https://lists.ala.org.au Licensed under Creative Commons Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.




Classification
Class:Aves
Order:Passeriformes
Family:Maluridae
Genus:Malurus
Species:elegans
Common Name:Red-winged Fairy-wren

Relatives in same Genus
  Lovely Fairy-wren (M. amabilis)
  Superb Fairy-wren (M. cyaneus)
  Variegated Fairy-wren (M. lamberti)
  White-winged Fairy-wren (M. leucopterus)
  Red-backed Fairy-wren (M. melanocephalus)
  Splendid Fairy-wren (M. splendens)