Habitat
Dense thickets in association with or without an overstorey of trees or other vegetation. Woodlands and shrublands dominated by mallee eucalypts or wattles, also scrublands and thickets of lignum.
Habits
Usually in pairs or small groups, with brown-plumaged birds dominating, sometimes associating with other fairy-wrens, such as White-winged Fairy-wren (Malurus leucopterus) and Superb Fairy-wren (Malurus cyaneus).
Food
Mainly insects but occasionally seeds.
Voice
A hard, staccoato, erratic and abrupt 'trrt-trtt, rrrrt-trrt-trt'. Contact calls are varied including a sharp 'trrit', and a thinner, squeakier, plaintive 'sreee'.
Nest
Dome-shaped with a side entrance near the top, composed of dried grasses or plant-down, placed near the ground in a low bush, tuft of grass or clump of ferns.
Eggs (Guide)
3 or 4; white speckled with red-brown at the larger end; long-oval; about 17 x 13 mm. Incubation: about 14 - 16 days; by female.
Young
Altricial, nidicolous. Fledge in 10 - 12 days.
Subspecies
Part of the "chestnut-shouldered group", which includes also Lovely Fairy-wren (Malurus amabilis), Blue-breasted Fairy-wren (Malurus pulcherrimus) and Red-winged Fairy-wren (Malurus elegans). Forms a superspecies with Lovely Fairy-wren (Malurus amabilis) and sometimes considered conspecific, mainly on account of blue female plumage of latter species and of subspecies dulcis and rogersi, but protein data support treatment as separate species. Geographical variation in colours of male and female plumage considerable, and subspecies were at one time regarded as representing four separate species, with many additional subspecies described. Subspecies assimilis intergrades with both dulcis and rogersi, and also, in east, with coastal nominate subspecies.
The following 5 subspecies are recognised:
lamberti Vigors & Horsfield, 1827 - Coastal mid-eastern Australia from Narooma - Bermagui, south-eastern New South Wales, north to Dawson - Mackenzie Basin in northern Qld, and extending west to the inner-western ridges of the Great Divide north from the Hunter River.
assimilis North, 1901 - All mainland Australia except south-western WA, Kimberley Divide, Arnhem Land, Cape York Peninsula, coastal eastern Australia east and south of the Great Divide and wet southern SA. Considered by some authors to be a subspecies of Purple-backed Fairy-wren (Malurus assimilis).
rogersi Mathews, 1912 - The Kimberley Divide, WA east to the Ord River Drainage. Considered by some authors to be a subspecies of Purple-backed Fairy-wren (Malurus assimilis).
bernieri Ogilvie-Grant, 1909 - Bernier Island, WA. Considered by some authors to be a subspecies of Purple-backed Fairy-wren (Malurus assimilis).
dulcis Mathews, 1908 - Arnhem Land, NT east of the Daly River. Considered by some authors to be a subspecies of Purple-backed Fairy-wren (Malurus assimilis).
Similar Species
Red-winged Fairy-wren (Malurus elegans) in south-western WA which is silvery-blue on the crown, ear coverts and back, and in the same region and on Eyre Peninsula, SA with Blue-breasted Fairy-wren (Malurus pulcherrimus) the female having a blue tail, fainter chestnut lores and eyering, male having a deep royal blue rather than dark blue breast and with females of Superb Fairy-wren (Malurus cyaneus) and Splendid Fairy-wren (Malurus splendens).
Compare Images
The Field Guide to the Birds of Australia Pizzey, G., and Knight, E., 1997, Angus & Robertson, Sydney ISBN 0 207 19691 5
Field Guide to Australian Birds Morecombe, M., 2000, Steve Parish Publishing Pty Ltd. ISBN 1 876282 10 X
Field Guide to the Birds of Australia Simpson, K., and Day, N., 1999, 6th Edition, Viking ISBN 0 670 87918 5
Reader's Digest Complete Book of Australian Birds 1988, 2nd Edition, Reader's Digest ISBN 0 949819 99 9
What Bird is That? 1984, Revised Edition, Angus & Robertson, Sydney ISBN 0 207 14846 5
Handbook of Australian, New Zealand & Antarctic Birds 1990 - , Oxford University Press, Melbourne ISBN 0 19 553244 9
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