Fairy-bluebird
Encyclopedia
The two fairy-bluebirds are small passerine
bird
species
found in forests and plantations in tropical southern Asia
and the Philippines
. They are the sole members of the genus
Irena and family
Irenidae, and are related to the iora
s and leafbird
s.
These are bulbul
-like birds of open forest or thorn scrub, but whereas that group tends to be drab in colouration, fairy-bluebirds are sexually dimorphic, with the males being dark blue in plumage, and the females duller green.
These species eat fruit, especially figs, and maybe some insects. They lay two to three eggs in a tree nest.
The call of the Asian Fairy-bluebird is a liquid two note Glue-It.
As the names would suggest, the Asian Fairy-bluebird occurs across southern Asia
, and the Philippine Fairy-bluebird in that archipelago.
genus Coracias
, presumably on the strength of the iridescent blue plumage
on the back. This was challenged in the 1820s by Thomas Horsfield
and Coenraad Temminck
, who suggested a relationship instead with the drongo
s. It was variously placed with the bulbul
s and oriole
s as well. On the basis of the DNA-DNA hybridization studies of Sibley and Alhquist its closest relatives have now been identified as the leafbird
s. The leafbirds are sometimes included in the family Irenidae with the fairy-bluebirds, but the time since the apparent divergence suggests that they are better treated as separate families.
s in shape and size. Males are larger than
females, and the two species weigh between 50-100 g, with some of that variation being caused by sexual differences and some by geographic variation. There are clines in size differences in both species which can be attributed to Bergmann's rule
, with the northernmost pouplations being larger on average. Both species have a powerful deep and notched bill
used for crushing, with that of the Philippine species being larger. Their feet are small, which suggests that they spend less time climbing in order to feed and more time on the wing.
The plumage
of the fairy-bluebirds is exceptional, with the upperparts being deep rich blue. The Asian Fairy-bluebird is sexually dimorphic in its plumage, with the male being much brighter than the female, but the Philippine Fairy-bluebird exhibits much less difference and the female is almost as bright as the male. The deep colour is provided by specialised naked feather-tip barbs. Although the fairy-bluebirds are highly visible in sunlight they are much less visible in the shade of the forest.
to Java
and Vietnam
. In India the species is present in the south west of the country and in the north east. From Burma it has a continuous distribution (in suitable habitat) throughout most of South East Asia, and down into Borneo
and Sumatra
, as well as on the Andaman Islands
. The species has not been reliably recorded on Sri Lanka
since the 1870s. The Philippine Fairy-bluebird is found on Luzon
, Polillo
, Leyte, Samar, Mindanao
, Dinagat and Basilan
.
The fairy-bluebirds are dependent upon fruit producing forests, but both species seem to exist in a wide range of forests, both evergreen and semi-evergreen. Within forests they are generally found in the canopy.
_feeding_on_peepal_(ficus_religiosa)_at_jayanti,_duars,_wb_w_picture_437.jpg)
Pairs or small groups (individuals are seldom seen alone) of fairy-bluebirds forage widely to obtain food. Fruit, particularly figs in the genus Ficus
, are the most important item in the diet of fairy-bluebirds. Fairy-bluebirds will generally eat fruit of a certain size, and will crush larger fruits in order to make them manageable. Most food is obtained in the canopy. In addition to fruit berries may be eaten, as well as nectar, although this behaviour has only been reported in birds in India. In contrast to adults, however, insects are the principal component of the diet of nestlings. In the Philippines
birds have been observed following troops of macaque
s, possibly in order to collect flushed insects.
Male courtship displays include elaborate vocalizations, which the female responds to with nest building. Nests are constructed in trees or tall bushes from twigs, moss and grasses, and males and females cooperate in rearing chicks.
Passerine
A passerine is a bird of the order Passeriformes, which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds or, less accurately, as songbirds, the passerines form one of the most diverse terrestrial vertebrate orders: with over 5,000 identified species, it has roughly...
bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
found in forests and plantations in tropical southern Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
and the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
. They are the sole members of the genus
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...
Irena and family
Family (biology)
In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...
Irenidae, and are related to the iora
Iora
The ioras are a family, Aegithinidae, of small passerine bird species found in India and southeast Asia. The family has only four species in a single genus, Aegithina. They are one of only three bird families that are entirely endemic to the Indomalayan ecozone...
s and leafbird
Leafbird
The leafbirds are a family of small passerine bird species found in India, Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. They are one of only three bird families that are entirely endemic to the Indomalayan ecozone. They were formerly grouped with the ioras and fairy-bluebirds in the family Irenidae...
s.
These are bulbul
Bulbul
Bulbuls are a family, Pycnonotidae, of medium-sized passerine songbirds. Many forest species are known as greenbuls. The family is distributed across most of Africa and into the Middle East, tropical Asia to Indonesia, and north as far as Japan. A few insular species occur on the tropical islands...
-like birds of open forest or thorn scrub, but whereas that group tends to be drab in colouration, fairy-bluebirds are sexually dimorphic, with the males being dark blue in plumage, and the females duller green.
These species eat fruit, especially figs, and maybe some insects. They lay two to three eggs in a tree nest.
The call of the Asian Fairy-bluebird is a liquid two note Glue-It.
As the names would suggest, the Asian Fairy-bluebird occurs across southern Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
, and the Philippine Fairy-bluebird in that archipelago.
Taxonomy
The first scientists to examine fairy-bluebirds placed them in the rollerRoller
The rollers are an Old World family, Coraciidae, of near passerine birds. The group gets its name from the aerial acrobatics some of these birds perform during courtship or territorial flights. Rollers resemble crows in size and build, and share the colourful appearance of kingfishers and...
genus Coracias
Coracias
Coracias is a genus of the rollers, an Old World family of near passerine birds related to the kingfishers and bee-eaters. They share the colourful appearance of those groups, blues and browns predominating. The two inner front toes are connected, but not the outer one.These are insect eaters,...
, presumably on the strength of the iridescent blue plumage
Plumage
Plumage refers both to the layer of feathers that cover a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage vary between species and subspecies and can also vary between different age classes, sexes, and season. Within species there can also be a...
on the back. This was challenged in the 1820s by Thomas Horsfield
Thomas Horsfield
Thomas Horsfield M. D. was an American physician and naturalist.Horsfield was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He was the grandson of Timothy Horsfield, Sr., a colonel and justice of the peace in Bethlehem, and a friend mentioned in Benjamin...
and Coenraad Temminck
Coenraad Jacob Temminck
Coenraad Jacob Temminck was a Dutch aristocrat and zoologist.Temminck was the first director of the National Natural History Museum at Leiden from 1820 until his death. His Manuel d'ornithologie, ou Tableau systematique des oiseaux qui se trouvent en Europe was the standard work on European birds...
, who suggested a relationship instead with the drongo
Drongo
The drongos are a family of small passerine birds of the Old World tropics, the Dicruridae. This family was sometimes much enlarged to include a number of largely Australasian groups, such as the Australasian fantails, monarchs and paradise flycatchers...
s. It was variously placed with the bulbul
Bulbul
Bulbuls are a family, Pycnonotidae, of medium-sized passerine songbirds. Many forest species are known as greenbuls. The family is distributed across most of Africa and into the Middle East, tropical Asia to Indonesia, and north as far as Japan. A few insular species occur on the tropical islands...
s and oriole
Oriole
Orioles are colourful Old World passerine birds in the genus Oriolus, the namesake of the corvoidean family Oriolidae. They are not related to the New World orioles, which are icterids and, belonging to the superfamily Passeroidea songbirds, are quite unrelated to the true orioles.The orioles are...
s as well. On the basis of the DNA-DNA hybridization studies of Sibley and Alhquist its closest relatives have now been identified as the leafbird
Leafbird
The leafbirds are a family of small passerine bird species found in India, Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. They are one of only three bird families that are entirely endemic to the Indomalayan ecozone. They were formerly grouped with the ioras and fairy-bluebirds in the family Irenidae...
s. The leafbirds are sometimes included in the family Irenidae with the fairy-bluebirds, but the time since the apparent divergence suggests that they are better treated as separate families.
Morphology
Fairy-bluebirds are robust birds that resemble Old World orioleOriole
Orioles are colourful Old World passerine birds in the genus Oriolus, the namesake of the corvoidean family Oriolidae. They are not related to the New World orioles, which are icterids and, belonging to the superfamily Passeroidea songbirds, are quite unrelated to the true orioles.The orioles are...
s in shape and size. Males are larger than
Sexual dimorphism
Sexual dimorphism is a phenotypic difference between males and females of the same species. Examples of such differences include differences in morphology, ornamentation, and behavior.-Examples:-Ornamentation / coloration:...
females, and the two species weigh between 50-100 g, with some of that variation being caused by sexual differences and some by geographic variation. There are clines in size differences in both species which can be attributed to Bergmann's rule
Bergmann's Rule
Bergmann's rule is an ecogeographic principle that states that within a broadly distributed genus, species of larger size are found in colder environments, and species of smaller size are found in warmer regions. Although originally formulated in terms of species within a genus, it has often been...
, with the northernmost pouplations being larger on average. Both species have a powerful deep and notched bill
Beak
The beak, bill or rostrum is an external anatomical structure of birds which is used for eating and for grooming, manipulating objects, killing prey, fighting, probing for food, courtship and feeding young...
used for crushing, with that of the Philippine species being larger. Their feet are small, which suggests that they spend less time climbing in order to feed and more time on the wing.
The plumage
Plumage
Plumage refers both to the layer of feathers that cover a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage vary between species and subspecies and can also vary between different age classes, sexes, and season. Within species there can also be a...
of the fairy-bluebirds is exceptional, with the upperparts being deep rich blue. The Asian Fairy-bluebird is sexually dimorphic in its plumage, with the male being much brighter than the female, but the Philippine Fairy-bluebird exhibits much less difference and the female is almost as bright as the male. The deep colour is provided by specialised naked feather-tip barbs. Although the fairy-bluebirds are highly visible in sunlight they are much less visible in the shade of the forest.
Distribution and habitat
The Asian Fairy-bluebird has a discontinuous distribution from IndiaIndia
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
to Java
Java
Java is an island of Indonesia. With a population of 135 million , it is the world's most populous island, and one of the most densely populated regions in the world. It is home to 60% of Indonesia's population. The Indonesian capital city, Jakarta, is in west Java...
and Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
. In India the species is present in the south west of the country and in the north east. From Burma it has a continuous distribution (in suitable habitat) throughout most of South East Asia, and down into Borneo
Borneo
Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....
and Sumatra
Sumatra
Sumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
, as well as on the Andaman Islands
Andaman Islands
The Andaman Islands are a group of Indian Ocean archipelagic islands in the Bay of Bengal between India to the west, and Burma , to the north and east...
. The species has not been reliably recorded on Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
since the 1870s. The Philippine Fairy-bluebird is found on Luzon
Luzon
Luzon is the largest island in the Philippines. It is located in the northernmost region of the archipelago, and is also the name for one of the three primary island groups in the country centered on the Island of Luzon...
, Polillo
Polillo
Polilio may refer to:* Polillo Islands, an island group in Quezon Province, the Philippines** Polillo Island, the main island of the Polillo Island Group*** Polillo, Quezon, a municipality on the island...
, Leyte, Samar, Mindanao
Mindanao
Mindanao is the second largest and easternmost island in the Philippines. It is also the name of one of the three island groups in the country, which consists of the island of Mindanao and smaller surrounding islands. The other two are Luzon and the Visayas. The island of Mindanao is called The...
, Dinagat and Basilan
Basilan (island)
Basilan Island is an island of the Philippines, it belongs to Basilan Province with its capital Isabela City.Basilan is geographically located between latitude 6°15' and 7°00' longitude 121°15' and 122°30'....
.
The fairy-bluebirds are dependent upon fruit producing forests, but both species seem to exist in a wide range of forests, both evergreen and semi-evergreen. Within forests they are generally found in the canopy.
Behaviour
Ficus
Ficus is a genus of about 850 species of woody trees, shrubs, vines, epiphytes, and hemiepiphyte in the family Moraceae. Collectively known as fig trees or figs, they are native throughout the tropics with a few species extending into the semi-warm temperate zone. The Common Fig Ficus is a genus of...
, are the most important item in the diet of fairy-bluebirds. Fairy-bluebirds will generally eat fruit of a certain size, and will crush larger fruits in order to make them manageable. Most food is obtained in the canopy. In addition to fruit berries may be eaten, as well as nectar, although this behaviour has only been reported in birds in India. In contrast to adults, however, insects are the principal component of the diet of nestlings. In the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
birds have been observed following troops of macaque
Macaque
The macaques constitute a genus of Old World monkeys of the subfamily Cercopithecinae. - Description :Aside from humans , the macaques are the most widespread primate genus, ranging from Japan to Afghanistan and, in the case of the barbary macaque, to North Africa...
s, possibly in order to collect flushed insects.
Male courtship displays include elaborate vocalizations, which the female responds to with nest building. Nests are constructed in trees or tall bushes from twigs, moss and grasses, and males and females cooperate in rearing chicks.
Species
- Asian Fairy-bluebird, Irena puella
- Philippine Fairy-bluebirdPhilippine Fairy-bluebirdThe Philippine Fairy-bluebird is a species of bird in the Irenidae family. It is endemic to the Philippines.Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests and subtropical or tropical moist montane forests.-References:* BirdLife International 2004. . Downloaded on 26...
, Irena cyanogaster
External links
- Fairy-bluebird videos on the Internet Bird Collection