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Australia is home to some of the world’s most remarkable birds—brolgas, galahs, rosellas, currawongs—to name a splendid few. According to BirdLife International’s State of the World’s Birds report, like many species globally, Australia’s birds are threatened by the ongoing environmental stressors of habitat loss and climate change. For the past two weeks, to help raise awareness of the need to protect the island continent’s diverse avian wildlife, friends of the feathered cast their votes for the top-of-the-tree, best-in-beaks Bird of the Year.
The 2021 all-around favorite, announced on October 8, was the superb fairy-wren, a passerine, aka perching bird, that inhabits backyards and woodlands across eastern Australia and Tasmania. Although the fairy-wren edged out our preferred pick, the tawny frogmouth, by a chin feather, we can appreciate the songbird’s many winning attributes. For starters, it’s hard not to be positively inclined toward a creature called “superb”. In addition to their esteem-enhancing moniker, the dainty songsters have other champion qualities:
It takes a bird village:
Superb fairy-wrens raise their young in cooperative social groups. One to four male helpers support nesting parents by contributing to the defense and feeding of hatchlings.
Winged chameleons:
During mating season, the plumage of the male superb fairy-wren changes from a muddy brown to a striking shade of blue. While female fairy-wrens prefer the males that turn blue first and stay blue the longest, when it comes to life expectancy, changing colors puts male birds at a competitive disadvantage because that vibrant hue also attracts predators. As a result, according to researchers at Monash University, male fairy-wrens in blue mode have learned to be super cautious. Compared to their brown flock mates, they spend more time foraging for food in hiding and they’re the first birds out of the bush in response to alarm calls—file those adaptive risk avoidance skills under survival of the bluest.
The littlest birds sing the prettiest songs:
In the avian world, males commonly sing more frequently and produce more complex songs to attract mates. However, superb fairy-wrens are equal opportunity vocalists. Both males and females sing solo year-round and tutor their sons and daughters in familial trills, twitters, and tweets. Have a listen.
And with those songbird snippets, we wrap up the 2021 Australian Bird Of The Year competition. To celebrate all of this year’s contestants, author and illustrator Georgia Angus has created a downloadable poster for your viewing pleasure. It’s free, it’s beautiful, and you can get it here. A hearty congratulations to the superb fairy-wren! Don’t despair, tawny frogmouth—you’ll get another chance to strut your feathered stuff in 2022.
Just a reminder: the southern hemisphere’s best-in-bird competitions continue with Forest & Bird’s New Zealand Bird of the Year, from October 18 through October 31. At the moment, we’re leaning toward the rockhopper penguin, but the royal spoonbill is pretty darn hard to resist. Hmm, and what about the southern brown kiwi… It’s a veritable bird watchers paradise down there!
