The Red-backed Fairywren (Malurus melanocephalus) is a species of passerine

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...

 in the Maluridae

Maluridae

The Maluridae are a family of small, insectivorous passerine birds endemic to Australia and New Guinea. Commonly known as wrens, they are unrelated to the true wrens of the Northern Hemisphere...

 family. It is endemic to Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 and can be found near rivers and coastal areas along the northern and eastern coastlines from the Kimberley in the northwest to the Hunter Region in New South Wales. Like other fairywrens, this species displays marked sexual dimorphism

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:...

. The male adopts a striking breeding plumage, with a black head and upperparts and tail, and brightly coloured red back and brown wings. The female has brownish upperparts and paler underparts. The male in eclipse plumage and the juvenile resemble the female. Some males remain in non-breeding plumage while breeding. Two subspecies are recognised; the nominate form melanocephalus of eastern Australia has a longer tail and orange back, and the short-tailed form cruentatus from northern Australia has a redder back.

The Red-backed Fairywren mainly eats insects

Insectivore

An insectivore is a type of carnivore with a diet that consists chiefly of insects and similar small creatures. An alternate term is entomophage, which also refers to the human practice of eating insects....

, and supplements its diet with seed and small fruit. The preferred habitat is heathland and savannah

Savannah

Savannah or savanna is a type of grassland.It can also mean:-People:* Savannah King, a Canadian freestyle swimmer* Savannah Outen, a singer who gained popularity on You Tube...

, particularly where low shrubs and tall grasses provide cover. It can be nomadic in areas where there are frequent bushfires, although pairs or small groups of birds maintain and defend territories year-round in other parts of its range. Groups consist of a socially monogamous pair with one or more helper

Helpers at the nest

Helpers at the nest is a term used in behavioural ecology and evolutionary biology to describe a social structure in which juveniles and sexually mature adolescents of either one or both sexes, remain in association with their parents and help them raise subsequent broods or litters, instead of...

 birds who assist in raising

Cooperative breeding

Cooperative breeding is a social system in which individuals contribute care to offspring that are not their own at the expense of their own reproduction . When reproduction is monopolized by one or few of the adult group members and most adults do not reproduce, but help rear the breeder’s...

 the young. These helpers are progeny that have attained sexual maturity yet remain with the family group for one or more years after fledging. The Red-backed Fairywren is sexually promiscuous, and each partner may mate with other individuals and even assist in raising the young from such pairings. Older males in breeding plumage are more likely to engage in this behaviour than are those breeding in eclipse plumage. As part of a courtship display

Courtship display

Courtship display is a special, sometimes ritualised, set of behaviours which some animals perform as part of courtship. Courtship behaviours can include special calls, postures, and movements, and may involve special plumage, bright colours or other ornamentation. A good example is the 'dancing'...

, the male wren plucks red petals from flowers and displays them to females.

Taxonomy

The Red-backed Fairywren was first collected from the vicinity of Port Stephens in New South Wales and described by ornithologist John Latham

John Latham (ornithologist)

John Latham was an English physician, naturalist and author. He was born at Eltham in Kent, and was the eldest son of John Latham, a surgeon there, and his mother was a descendant of the Sothebys, in Yorkshire....

 in 1801 as the Black-headed Flycatcher (Muscicapa melanocephala); its specific epithet derived from the Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

 melano- 'black' and kephalos 'head'. However, the specimen used by Latham was a male in partial moult, with mixed black and brown plumage and an orange back, and he named it for its black head. A male in full adult plumage was described as Sylvia dorsalis, and the explorers Nicholas Aylward Vigors

Nicholas Aylward Vigors

Nicholas Aylward Vigors was an Irish zoologist and politician.Vigors was born at Old Leighlin, County Carlow. He studied at Trinity College, Oxford. He served in the army during the Peninsular War from 1809 to 1811. He then returned to Oxford, graduating with a B.A. in 1815 and in 1817 with an...

 and 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...

 gave a third specimen from central Queensland the name Malurus brownii, honouring botanist Robert Brown

Robert Brown (botanist)

Robert Brown was a Scottish botanist and palaeobotanist who made important contributions to botany largely through his pioneering use of the microscope...

. John Gould

John Gould

John Gould was an English ornithologist and bird artist. The Gould League in Australia was named after him. His identification of the birds now nicknamed "Darwin's finches" played a role in the inception of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection...

 described Malurus cruentatus in 1840 from a short-tailed scarlet-backed specimen collected in Northwestern Australia by Benjamin Bynoe aboard the HMS Beagle

HMS Beagle

HMS Beagle was a Cherokee-class 10-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy. She was launched on 11 May 1820 from the Woolwich Dockyard on the River Thames, at a cost of £7,803. In July of that year she took part in a fleet review celebrating the coronation of King George IV of the United Kingdom in which...

 on its third voyage. The first three names were synonymised into Malurus melanocephalus by Gould who maintained his form as a separate species. An intermediate form from north Queensland was described as pyrrhonotus. Ornithologist Tom Iredale

Tom Iredale

Tom Iredale was an English-born ornithologist and malacologist who had a long association with Australia, where he lived for most of his life. He was an autodidact who never went to university and lacked formal training...

 proposed the common name "Elfin-wren" in 1939, however this was not taken up.

Like other fairywrens, the Red-backed Fairywren is unrelated to the true wren

Wren

The wrens are passerine birds in the mainly New World family Troglodytidae. There are approximately 80 species of true wrens in approximately 20 genera....

 (family Troglodytidae). It was previously classified as a member of the old world flycatcher family Muscicapidae and later as a member of the warbler family Sylviidae

Sylviidae

Sylviidae is a family of passerine birds that was part of an assemblage known as the Old World warblers. The family was formerly a wastebin taxon with over 400 species of bird in over 70 genera. The family was poorly defined with many characteristics shared with other families...

 before being placed in the newly recognised fairywren family Maluridae

Maluridae

The Maluridae are a family of small, insectivorous passerine birds endemic to Australia and New Guinea. Commonly known as wrens, they are unrelated to the true wrens of the Northern Hemisphere...

 in 1975. More recently, DNA

DNA

Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...

 analysis has shown that the Maluridae family is related to the Meliphagidae (honeyeater

Honeyeater

The honeyeaters are a large and diverse family of small to medium sized birds most common in Australia and New Guinea, but also found in New Zealand, the Pacific islands as far east as Samoa and Tonga, and the islands to the north and west of New Guinea known as Wallacea...

s), and the Pardalotidae (pardalotes, scrubwrens, thornbills, gerygones and allies) in the large superfamily Meliphagoidea

Meliphagoidea

Meliphagoidea is a superfamily of passerine birds. They contain a vast diversity of small to mid-sized songbirds widespread in the Austropacific region. The Australian Continent has the largest richness in genera and species.-Systematics:...

.

Within the Maluridae, it is one of 12 species in its genus, Malurus

Malurus

Malurus is a genus of bird in the Maluridae family.It contains the following species:* White-shouldered Fairywren * Lovely Fairywren * Purple-crowned Fairywren...

. It is most closely related to the Australian White-winged Fairywren, with which it makes up a phylogenetic clade

Clade

A clade is a group consisting of a species and all its descendants. In the terms of biological systematics, a clade is a single "branch" on the "tree of life". The idea that such a "natural group" of organisms should be grouped together and given a taxonomic name is central to biological...

, with the White-shouldered Fairywren of New Guinea as the next closest relative. Termed the bicoloured wrens by ornithologist Richard Schodde

Richard Schodde

Richard Schodde, OAM is an Australian botanist and ornithologist.Schodde studied at the University of Adelaide where he received a BSc in 1960 and a PhD in 1970. During the 1960s he was a botanist with the CSIRO Division of Land Research and Regional Survey in Papua New Guinea...

, these three species are notable for their lack of head patterns and ear tufts, and one-coloured black or blue plumage with contrasting shoulder or wing colour; they replace each other geographically across northern Australia and New Guinea.

Subspecies

George Mack

George Mack (ornithologist)

George Mack was mainly a museum ornithologist and collector. He migrated from Britain to Western Australia in 1919. He worked at the National Museum of Victoria from 1923 to 1945. During this time, he published a revision of the Australian species of the Fairy-wren genus Malurus...

, ornithologist of the National Museum of Victoria

Museum Victoria

Museum Victoria is an organisation which operates three major state-owned museums in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; these are: the Melbourne Museum, the Immigration Museum and Scienceworks. It also manages the Royal Exhibition Building and a storage facility in Melbourne's City of Moreland.Museum...

, was the first to classify the three forms melanocephalus, cruentatus and pyrrhonotus as one species, although Richard Schodde reclassified pyrrhonotus as a hybrid from a broad hybrid zone in North Queensland; this area is bounded by the Burdekin

Burdekin River

The Burdekin River in Queensland, Australia rises on the western slope of the Seaview Range and flows into the Pacific Ocean at Upstart Bay over 200 km to the southeast of the source. The river was first encountered by Europeans during the expedition led by Ludwig Leichhardt in 1845 and named...

, Endeavour

Endeavour River

The Endeavour River on Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland, Australia, was named in 1770 by Lt. James Cook, R.N., after he was forced to beach his ship, HM Bark Endeavour, for repairs in the river mouth, after damaging it on Endeavour Reef...

 and Norman River

Norman River

The Norman River is a river in Queensland, Australia. The river originates in the Gregory Range 200 km southeast of Croydon, Queensland and flows 420 km northwest to the Gulf of Carpentaria. It is joined by three major tributaries, the Carron, Clara and Yappar Rivers...

s. Breeding males of intermediate plumage, larger and scarlet-backed, or smaller and orange-backed, as well as forms that resemble one of the two parent subspecies, are all encountered within it. A molecular study published in 2008 focussing on the Cape York population found it was genetically closer to the eastern forest subspecies than to the Top End form. These birds became segregated around 0.27 million years ago, with some gene flow still with eastern birds.

Two subspecies are recognised:

• M. m. melanocephalus, the nominate subspecies, has an orange back and longer tail and is found from northern coastal New South Wales through to North Queensland. This form has been previously called the Orange-backed Fairywren.

• M. m. cruentatus occurs across Northern Australia from the Kimberleys to northern Queensland. It is smaller than the nominate subspecies, with males averaging 7.1 g
  Gram
  The gram is a metric system unit of mass....
  
   (0.25 oz
  Ounce
  The ounce is a unit of mass with several definitions, the most commonly used of which are equal to approximately 28 grams. The ounce is used in a number of different systems, including various systems of mass that form part of the imperial and United States customary systems...
  
  ) and females 6.6 g (0.23 oz) in weight. Males in breeding plumage on Melville Island have a deeper crimson colour to their back. Cruentatus 'bloodstained' is derived from the Latin
  Latin
  Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
  
   verb cruentare 'to stain with blood'.

Evolutionary history

Ornithologist Richard Schodde has proposed the ancestors of the two subspecies were separated during the last glacial period in the Pleistocene

Pleistocene

The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....

 around 12,000 years ago. Aridity had pushed the grasslands preferred by the wren to the north, and with subsequent wetter warmer conditions it once again spread southwards and met the eastern form in northern Queensland and intermediate forms arose. The distribution of the three bi-coloured fairywren species indicates their ancestors lived across New Guinea and northern Australia in a period when sea levels were lower and the two regions were joined by a land bridge

Land bridge

A land bridge, in biogeography, is an isthmus or wider land connection between otherwise separate areas, over which animals and plants are able to cross and colonise new lands...

. Populations became separated as sea levels rose, and New Guinea birds evolved into the White-shouldered Fairywren, and Australian forms into the Red-backed Fairywren and the arid-adapted White-winged Fairywren.

Description

The smallest member of the genus Malurus, the Red-backed Fairywren measures 11.5 cm (4½ in) and weighs between 5–10 g (0.18–0.35 oz), averaging around 8 g (0.21 oz). The 6 cm (2½ in) long tail is black in the breeding male, and brown in eclipse males, females and juvenile birds. Averaging 8.6 mm (0.338582677165354 in), the 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...

 is relatively long, narrow and pointed and wider at the base. Wider than it is deep, the bill is similar in shape to those of other birds that feed by probing for or picking insects off their environs.

Like other fairywrens, the Red-backed Fairywren is notable for its marked sexual dimorphism

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:...

; the male adopts full breeding plumage by the fourth year, later than all other fairywrens apart from its relative the White-winged Fairywren. The male in breeding plumage has a black head and body with striking red back and brown wings. At other times it has a brown upper body and white underparts. Some, mainly younger, males do remain in eclipse plumage while breeding. The female looks remarkably similar with a buff brown body and a yellowish spot under the eye. The female of this species differs from those of other fairy wren species in that it lacks a blue tint in the tail. Geographically, it follows Gloger's rule

Gloger's rule

Gloger's Rule is a zoological rule which states that within a species of endotherms, more heavily pigmented forms tend to be found in more humid environments, e.g. near the equator. It was named after the zoologist Constantin Wilhelm Lambert Gloger, who first remarked upon this phenomenon in 1833...

; female birds have whiter bellies and paler brown upperparts inland in sunnier climates. Juveniles of both sexes look very similar to females.

Vocalizations

The typical song used by the Red-backed Fairywren to advertise its territory is similar to that of other fairy wrens, namely a reel made up of an introductory note followed by repeated short segments of song, starting weak and soft and ending high and shrill with several syllables. The call is mostly made by the male during mating season. Birds will communicate with one another while foraging with a soft ssst, barely audible further than 10–15 m (30–50 ft) away. The alarm call is a high-pitched zit.

Distribution and habitat

The Red-backed Fairywren is endemic to Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 and can be seen along rivers and the coast from Cape Keraudren in northern Western Australia through the Kimberleys, Arnhem Land

Arnhem Land

The Arnhem Land Region is one of the five regions of the Northern Territory of Australia. It is located in the north-eastern corner of the territory and is around 500 km from the territory capital Darwin. The region has an area of 97,000 km² which also covers the area of Kakadu National...

 and the Gulf Country and into Cape York, with the Selwyn Range

Selwyn Range (Australia)

The Selwyn Range is a rugged mountain range near Mount Isa and Cloncurry in north-west Queensland, Australia, composed largely of Proterozoic metamorphic rocks...

 and upper reaches of the Flinders River

Flinders River

The Flinders River is the longest river in Queensland, Australia at about . The river rises in the Burra Range, part of the Great Dividing Range, 110 km northeast of Hughenden and flows in a westerly direction past Hughenden, Richmond and Julia Creek then northwest to the Gulf of Carpentaria...

 as a southern limit. It is also found on the nearby offshore islands Groote Eylandt

Groote Eylandt

Groote Eylandt is the largest island in the Gulf of Carpentaria in northeastern Australia. It is the homeland of, and is owned by, the Anindilyakwa people who speak the isolated Anindilyakwa language)....

, Sir Edmund Pellew, Fraser, Melville and Bathurst Islands. It then occurs all the way down the east coast east of the Great Dividing Range

Great Dividing Range

The Great Dividing Range, or the Eastern Highlands, is Australia's most substantial mountain range and the third longest in the world. The range stretches more than 3,500 km from Dauan Island off the northeastern tip of Queensland, running the entire length of the eastern coastline through...

 to the Hunter River in New South Wales, preferring wet, grassy tropical or sub-tropical areas, with tall grasses such as bladygrass (Imperata cylindrica), species of Sorghum

Sorghum

Sorghum is a genus of numerous species of grasses, one of which is raised for grain and many of which are used as fodder plants either cultivated or as part of pasture. The plants are cultivated in warmer climates worldwide. Species are native to tropical and subtropical regions of all continents...

, and Eulalia

Eulalia (genus)

Eulalia is a genus of about 30 species of mostly perennial grass from tropical Africa, Asia and into Australia. It was named after the botanical artist Eulalie Delile....

. It is not a true migrant

Bird migration

Bird migration is the regular seasonal journey undertaken by many species of birds. Bird movements include those made in response to changes in food availability, habitat or weather. Sometimes, journeys are not termed "true migration" because they are irregular or in only one direction...

, although it may be locally nomadic due to the changes in vegetation, and may leave its territory after the breeding season. The species will retreat to fire-resistant cover at times of fire.

The Red-backed Fairywren avoids arid habitats, and is replaced to the south of its range by the White-winged Fairywren.

Behaviour

The Red-backed Fairywren is diurnal, and becomes active at dawn and again, in bursts, throughout the day. When not foraging, birds often shelter together. They roost side-by-side in dense cover as well and engage in mutual preening. The usual form of locomotion is hopping, with both feet leaving the ground and landing simultaneously. However, a bird may run when performing the rodent-run display. Its balance is assisted by a relatively long tail, which is usually held upright and is rarely still. The short, rounded wings provide good initial lift and are useful for short flights, though not for extended jaunts. Birds generally fly in a series of undulations for a maximum of 20 or 30 m (60–100 ft)

In dry tall grasslands in monsoonal areas, the change in vegetation may be so great due to either fires or wet season growth that birds may be more nomadic and change territories more than other fairywrens. They form more stable territories elsewhere, such as in coastal areas. Cooperative breeding

Cooperative breeding

Cooperative breeding is a social system in which individuals contribute care to offspring that are not their own at the expense of their own reproduction . When reproduction is monopolized by one or few of the adult group members and most adults do not reproduce, but help rear the breeder’s...

 is less common with this species than with other fairywrens; helper birds have been sporadically reported, but the Red-backed Fairywren has been little studied.

Both the male and female adult Red-backed Fairywren may utilise the rodent-run display to distract predators from nests with young birds. The head, neck and tail are lowered, the wings are held out and the feathers are fluffed as the bird runs rapidly and voices a continuous alarm call.

Feeding

Like other fairywrens, the Red-backed Fairywren is predominantly insectivorous

Insectivore

An insectivore is a type of carnivore with a diet that consists chiefly of insects and similar small creatures. An alternate term is entomophage, which also refers to the human practice of eating insects....

; they eat a wide variety of insects, including beetle

Beetle

Coleoptera is an order of insects commonly called beetles. The word "coleoptera" is from the Greek , koleos, "sheath"; and , pteron, "wing", thus "sheathed wing". Coleoptera contains more species than any other order, constituting almost 25% of all known life-forms...

s such as weevil

Weevil

A weevil is any beetle from the Curculionoidea superfamily. They are usually small, less than , and herbivorous. There are over 60,000 species in several families, mostly in the family Curculionidae...

s, leaf-

Leaf beetle

Beetles in the family Chrysomelidae are commonly known as leaf beetles. This is a family of over 35,000 species in more than 2,500 genera, one of the largest and most commonly encountered of all beetle families....

, jewel-, flea-

Flea beetle

Flea beetles is a general name applied to the small, jumping beetles of the leaf beetle family . They make up the tribe Alticini, which is a part of the subfamily Galerucinae, though they were historically classified as a subfamily in their own right...

 and ground-beetles

Ground beetle

Ground beetles are a large, cosmopolitan family of beetles, Carabidae, with more than 40,000 species worldwide, approximately 2,000 of which are found in North America and 2,700 in Europe.-Description and ecology:...

, bugs

Hemiptera

Hemiptera is an order of insects most often known as the true bugs , comprising around 50,000–80,000 species of cicadas, aphids, planthoppers, leafhoppers, shield bugs, and others...

, grasshopper

Grasshopper

The grasshopper is an insect of the suborder Caelifera in the order Orthoptera. To distinguish it from bush crickets or katydids, it is sometimes referred to as the short-horned grasshopper...

s, moth

Moth

A moth is an insect closely related to the butterfly, both being of the order Lepidoptera. Moths form the majority of this order; there are thought to be 150,000 to 250,000 different species of moth , with thousands of species yet to be described...

s, wasp

Wasp

The term wasp is typically defined as any insect of the order Hymenoptera and suborder Apocrita that is neither a bee nor an ant. Almost every pest insect species has at least one wasp species that preys upon it or parasitizes it, making wasps critically important in natural control of their...

s and cicada

Cicada

A cicada is an insect of the order Hemiptera, suborder Auchenorrhyncha , in the superfamily Cicadoidea, with large eyes wide apart on the head and usually transparent, well-veined wings. There are about 2,500 species of cicada around the world, and many of them remain unclassified...

s. Insect larvae and eggs are eaten as well as spiders. Seeds and other plant material make up only a very small proportion of its diet. It can be found hunting for insects in leaf litter, shrubbery and on the edges of bodies of water, mostly in the morning and late afternoon. Adults of both sexes as well as helper

Helpers at the nest

Helpers at the nest is a term used in behavioural ecology and evolutionary biology to describe a social structure in which juveniles and sexually mature adolescents of either one or both sexes, remain in association with their parents and help them raise subsequent broods or litters, instead of...

 birds feed the young.

Courtship and breeding

During the mating season, the male moults its brown feathers and displays a fiery red plumage. It may fluff its red back and shoulder feathers out so they cover part of the wings in a puffball-display. It will fly about and confront another male to repel it, or to assert dominance over a female. It also picks red petals and sometimes red seeds and presents them to other birds. 90% of the time, the male presents to a female in what appears to be a courtship ritual. The other 10% of the time, it presents to another male in an act of apparent aggression.

Over half the Red-backed Fairywrens in an area can be found in pairs during the mating season. This is apparently a defence against the resource-limited nature of the environment. It is more difficult to maintain a larger interdependent group during dry spells, so the birds try to stay in pairs or smaller groups, which include adults that help parents look after young. Paternity tests have shown that an older male with bright plumage has much more success in the mating season and can mate with more than one female. Accordingly, it has higher sperm storage and makes more mating overtures towards females. A male with browner and less bright plumage or a younger male with bright plumage has a much lower success rate than a bright, older male for mating. Further, an unpaired male serves as a helper to a mated pair in feeding and care of young. When the male pairs his bill darkens, and this happens within three weeks. This is much easier to control than plumage, as moulting takes time and is controlled by seasonality. The bill is vascular and much easier to change in response to the pairings.

The mating season lasts from August to February, and coincides with the arrival of the rainy season in northern Australia. The female does the bulk of the nest building, although the male does assist; this is unusual for the genus Malurus. Concealed in grass tussocks or low shrubs, the spherical nest is constructed of dried grasses and usually lined with smaller, finer grasses and hair. Nests examined in southeast Queensland tended to be larger and untidier than those in northern Australia; the former measured 12–15 cm high by 9–12 cm wide and bore a partly covered 3–6 cm diameter entrance, whereas the latter average around 10–13 cm in height by 6–8 cm wide with a 2–4 cm entrance. Construction takes around one week, and there may be an interval of up to another seven days before eggs are laid. The eggs produced are white with reddish-brown spots in clutches of three to four, and measure 14.5–17 x 10–13 mm; those of subspecies melanocephalus are a little larger than those of cruentatus. The eggs are incubated for two weeks by the female alone. The nestlings are hidden under cover for one week after hatching. The juveniles depend on parents and helpers for approximately one month. They learn to fly between 11–12 days after hatching. Broods hatched earlier in the season will help to raise the broods hatched later on. They will stay as a clutch group for the season after hatching.

Predators and threats

Adults and their young may be preyed upon by mammals such as the feral cat

Feral cat

A feral cat is a descendant of a domesticated cat that has returned to the wild. It is distinguished from a stray cat, which is a pet cat that has been lost or abandoned, while feral cats are born in the wild; the offspring of a stray cat can be considered feral if born in the wild.In many parts of...

 (Felis catus) and red fox

Red Fox

The red fox is the largest of the true foxes, as well as being the most geographically spread member of the Carnivora, being distributed across the entire northern hemisphere from the Arctic Circle to North Africa, Central America, and the steppes of Asia...

 (Vulpes vulpes), as well as rodent species, and native predatory birds, such as the Australian Magpie

Australian Magpie

The Australian Magpie is a medium-sized black and white passerine bird native to Australia and southern New Guinea. A member of the Artamidae, it is closely related to the butcherbirds...

 (Gymnorhina tibicen), butcherbird

Butcherbird

Butcherbirds are magpie-like birds in the genus Cracticus. They are native to Australasia. Their closest relatives are the three species of currawong...

 species (Cracticus spp.), Blue-winged Kookaburra

Blue-winged Kookaburra

The Blue-winged Kookaburra, Dacelo leachii, is a large species of kingfisher native to northern Australia and southern New Guinea.Measuring around 40 cm , it is slightly smaller than the more familiar Laughing Kookaburra. It has cream-coloured upper- and underparts barred with brownish markings. It...

 (Dacelo leachii), crow

Crow

Crows form the genus Corvus in the family Corvidae. Ranging in size from the relatively small pigeon-size jackdaws to the Common Raven of the Holarctic region and Thick-billed Raven of the highlands of Ethiopia, the 40 or so members of this genus occur on all temperate continents and several...

s and raven

Raven

Raven is the common name given to several larger-bodied members of the genus Corvus—but in Europe and North America the Common Raven is normally implied...

s (Corvus spp.), and shrike-thrush

Shrike-thrush

Colluricincla is a bird genus in the family Colluricinclidae, which was formerly included in the Pachycephalidae. Its members are known as the shrikethrushes.It contains the following species:* Bower's Shrikethrush, Colluricincla boweri...

es (Colluricincla spp.), and reptiles such as goanna

Goanna

Goanna is the name used to refer to any number of Australian monitor lizards of the genus Varanus, as well as to certain species from Southeast Asia.There are around 30 species of goanna, 25 of which are found in Australia...

s (Varanus spp.).

Cited texts

External links

• Red-backed Fairywren videos on the Internet Bird Collection