White-winged Fairy-wren Malurus leucopterus
Length 11–13 cm; wingspan 11.5–15 cm; weight 7–8 g.
A gregarious species, the White-winged Fairy-wren is often encountered in parties of 8–12 birds in which brown birds outnumber birds in their distinctive breeding plumage. The species inhabits arid and semi-arid shrublands, where they forage on the ground or, less often, among the branches of shrubs. When foraging, wrens hop over the ground with their tails tightly closed and cocked at 60°–100°. When flushed they often fly off, low over the tops of shrubs for up to 100 metres (much farther than other species of fairy-wrens) and then dropping into shrubs, running along the ground for a few metres before taking flight again; alternatively, adult breeding males sometimes alight on the top of a bush after flushing and flying for some distance. The flight of this species is feeble, with rapid, shallow wingbeats.
HABITAT
White-winged Fairy-wrens inhabit a variety of shrublands in arid and semi-arid areas, though they especially occur among low samphire, saltbush and other chenopod shrubs. The species also sometimes occurs among dense thickets of lignum Muehlenbeckia or canegrass Zygochloa or Eragrostris, and occasionally also in grasslands dominated by spinifex Triodia or spear grass Stipa on sandhills or sandplains, as well as in heathland or among scrub made up of mallee eucalypts or acacias. On Dirk Hartog Island, White-winged Fairy-wrens are widespread from the coastal dunes to the summit of the island, where they occur in thickets of mallee eucalypts, low scrub dominated by acacias, Diplolaena and spinifex, broad flats of saltbush, dense low Melaleuca and Thryptomene heaths, and clumps of spinifex and seagrass. The Barrow Island subspecies occurs in hummock grasslands growing on sandplains, sandhills or swales between the dunes; these include emergent shrubs, or thickets of shrubs, such as Necklace Acacia and Bats Wing Coral Tree Erythrina vespertilio.
DISTRIBUTION
Endemic to arid and semi-arid sections of mainland Australia.
STATUS
- Vulnerable (Barrow Island subspecies M.l. edouardi; Dirk Hartog Island subspecies M.l. leucopterus) in Western Australia
- Vulnerable (Barrow Island subspecies M.l. edouardi; Dirk Hartog Island subspecies M.l. leucopterus) in EPBC Act
THREATS
Because the distribution of the Barrow and Dirk Hartog Island subspecies are so restricted they are considered vulnerable to catastrophic events, such as an invasion by rats or an outbreak of wild fires.
MOVEMENTS
White-winged Fairy-wrens are resident or sedentary. |
|
|
|
|
