Superb fairy-wrens are also known as blue wrens, they live as a family group.

Fairy-wrens have weak powers of flight but have long legs and spend most of their time on the ground or in shrubs, progressing in a series of hops as they gather food.

In families of superb fairy-wrens it seems that fathers get all the good looks. The dazzling blue feathers on the breeding male’s head, neck and tail. Somewhere nearby will be a group of small brown birds. These are the females, and ‘stay at home’ children of previous broods.

 

Stolen Sky

By Sioban Timmer

 

Fairy Wren upon a branch

I love to watch you skip and prance

Your colour stolen from the sky

A summer moment dancing by

 

Your partner with her feathers brown

Is no less pretty as she bounds

Perhaps because you make the pair

Of sky and earth together there

 

So Fairy Wren please stay a while

Lift my heart and make me smile

Though even once you hop away

A hint of summer sky will stay