October 5, 2009
ON the kitchen wall of this house where I’m living someone has pasted a picture of the Superb Fairy-Wren—the paper bird more than five times the size of the actual bird—though perhaps not five times the size of that actual bird’s real presence. (Search the wren at www.ozanimals.com to see it for yourself.) I think of it as the guardian of the house, and of me its inhabitant, the long, nearly-upright tail shedding blessings over me as I sit beneath it to eat. In fact, I’m coming to think the Superb Fairy-Wren is one of the resident spirits of Tasmania itself, or at any rate of the small parts of it I’ve been exploring.
Through Peter Grant’s blog*where he writes affectionately about its bubbly personality and behaviour, I met it before I arrived here. When I read what Peter had to say about it I could hardly wait to see this tiny wren with the brilliant turquoise cap, cheek, and collar, but wondered how likely that was to happen.
Wrens at home are shy and secretive, scolding from tangles of shrubs and underbrush as you walk past, darting rapidly from twig to twig behind leaves when you try to see them. And their plumage—perhaps they are the original ‘lbb’s (little brown birds) or ‘lbj’s (little brown jobs) of birdwatcher parlance. In my experience their chatter and furiously rapid singing, and/or the glimpse of a long cocked tail, identify them far more often than a good look at the whole bird. So my sighting a Superb Fairy-Wren at the Frog Dam on Knocklofty within the first few days I was here was an unexpected pleasure. (And by the way, I can now say definitely that the brownish wren I saw there was the female.)
Fairy-wren sightings have continued, threading through my days here in the park. Shortly after I arrived a pair flitted about in the back yard of this little house, and they’ve been visible just outside my windows every day—a zip of vivid blue crosses the yard, or a piece of the faded duff on the ground suddenly stirs revealing a long tail. Several times a male has perched like a glittering blue jewel on the moss-covered stump barely 4 feet from where I’m reading. Often three or four of them together bob about the yard. And it’s not just this yard they fill with their presence—such tiny mites to take command of the eye as they do: I’ve seen them on the beach at Platypus Bay, by the viewing platform that looks to Mount Olympus, and at various times on the forest walks I’ve taken. These wrens are less secretive and hidden than those at home; often they stand still on the ground or perch on branch or stump for several seconds. Every time I see them they make me smile.
I’ve trolled through the various bird books in the staff library here and discovered they have many common names: Blue Wren, Superb Blue Wren, Jenny Wren, Superb Warbler, Bluecap, Blue Bonnet, Cocktail. They are one of several species of blue wrens (though the only one found in Tasmania), all part of the fairy-wren group. Most of them have some blue plumage and they include: the Turquoise Fairy-Wren, the Blue-breasted, the Lavender-flanked, the Splendid, and the Lovely—words do fail sometimes.
The books have told me that Fairy-Wrens are one of four groups of Australian wrens, all feeding on or near to the ground. According to Simpson & Day, they “are part of the ancient Australo-Papuan bird group, which evolved locally and spread throughout Australia” and definitely not related to the Old World thrushes, warblers, and flycatchers. I’m ashamed to say my knowledge of bird family connections and binomials is poor and so I don’t know if that means they also have no direct connection to North American wrens. If not, it’s interesting but perhaps not surprising that a bird so similar in both shape and some behaviours should emerge here—and no surprise at all that it would be deemed a wren by anyone from Great Britain.
Fairy-Wrens are social, living in groups within a territory. As far as I can make out there will be a breeding pair in the group and some non-breeding birds of both sexes, as well as juveniles. This explains why I’ve frequently seen three or four wrens amicably together—those two females darting after a male along the beach at Platypus Bay were not necessarily in ardent competition for his attention after all. They build domed nests close to the ground. It’s possible the nonbreeding adults help raise the young, as do crows, but I don’t know this to be true. The Superb Wren’s nest has a side-opening, like the North American Ovenbird’s, but is not actually situated on the ground.
I’ve learned that Superb Fairy-Wrens engage in a distraction display if a nest is threatened. Again from Simpson & Day: “the bird scuttles away in a rodent-like manner, the ‘rodent-run’ display.” (The female Superb has also been described as “mouse-brown” … ) Perhaps one evening I’ll muck around at the edge of the yard where the thickety bushes are growing, where I frequently see the wrens, and see if I can occasion that ‘rodent-run’— Or, perhaps I’ll leave them in peace and hope only that I’m watching if some other creature gives cause for the alarm.
*Peter Grant is one of the founders of the WildCare Tasmania Nature Writing Prize. He’s deeply interested in nature writing and is currently working on a book on walking. You can check out his blog at http://auntyscuttle.blogspot.com. Among other things he has posted an essay on nature writing that’s well worth reading.
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