Superb Fairy Wren

Both the images are of a male Superb Fairy wren (Malurus cyaneus), a gleaming, velvety blue and black bird. The male is so colourful that it is hard to miss it- so hard to miss, that I missed out on photographing the female ! Other than the colourful plumage this wren leads a colourful life too. The birds are monogamous and pair for life, but they are also sexually promiscuous, which means that each partner will mate with other individuals and they will raise the chicks together born out of such mating. So infidelity is quite the norm, despite the monogamy.
As a part of their courtship display the male plucks and offers yellow petals to the female. This restless insectivorous bird, also has an interesting way to identify parasitic cuckoo in their nest (see previous post). It uses a unique song as a password, which only the superb wrens chicks respond to. A very interesting bird indeed. The bird is found only in Eastern Australia and Tasmania. 

White Browed Scrubwren

The weather in Sydney is bright and sunny today, but the week has been overcast with continuous rains. Despite the rain, we went to the blue mountains and at the the higher altitude, the visibility was very poor. May be even less than 500 meters. A very bad weather for birding I thought, that is until a few White browed Scrubwren's (Sericornis frontalis ) came hopping, to me. They were foraging of-course , but to my surprise they were unperturbed, by my presence. The birds quite rapidly jumped from perch to perch, bush to bush and it was only because of their incessant chirps that I could locate them easily. Hoping the sunny weather we had today persists atleast, when we go birding. 

Winter Wren

Winter Wren (Troglodytes troglodytes) is a common bird for Europe but in India its a local resident of Himalayas and may migrate to lower latitude only during winter. When I saw this tiny bird on board my ship, it was not shy and I was able to photograph it easily from a close range. The tiny bird was about 9 or 10 cm and was foraging for flies in the ships mooring ropes. It frequently entered into crevices which are formed when a rope is coiled and exited from another adjoining opening.
The bird was photographed off Greece and the first thing I remembered when I saw this winter Wren was a Aesop's Fable about the wren. The birds once hold a contest to crown a king, the bird which can soar the highest was to be the king. The eagle soared higher than all the birds and when the eagle started to tire, the clever wren which was hiding in eagles feather came out and soared far above and was crowned the king. Aesop must have closely watched the Wren, because I realised that the bird was not only tiny but also liked to hide and spotting it in between the similarly coloured rope was quite a task.

Photo details : 300 mm lens , f/5.4 , 1/640 sec , ISO-200