Malurus melanocephalus melanocephalus (Red-Backed Fairywren) IUCN Status: Least Concern Fairy-wrens love busy understories and lantana in particular. Photographing birds in this growth results in photos with distracting, “busy” backgrounds, or even worse – obscured subjects. This photo while I was sitting in the undergrowth looking out at a few sticks I’d propped up out just out in the clear in the warm afternoon light. Then I played their call from my phone and they obliged me with sitting on the perch.
Red-backed fairy-wrens have two subspecies. In the north they have the blood red colouring that gives the species its name. The other subspecies lives further south on the eastern coast from roughly Mt Isa down to the mid NSW coast. This southern dweller has more orange plumage colouration, so for most people, the red-backed wren is orange… if you look close enough.
