When nestlings are newly hatched the female incubates them for long periods and intercepts the food brought to the nest, eating some herself and passing the remainder on to the young.
Nestlings are fed at the nest by the rest of the group including their older siblings if there has been a previous successful nesting that year. Nests take several days to a week or more to finish, more quickly if there is an old nest nearby from which to scavenge material. The female of the Splendid Fairy-wren does the entire nest building, incubating, and brooding of young. Such a situation is rarely found in the Superb Fairy-wren. Groups of Splendid Fairy-wrens include additional adult females as well as adult males throughout the breeding season. Female breeding for the first time produces more fledglings if she has helpers than if she does not. This allows the female to produce several broods. All of the members of this group assist in both territorial and nest-site defense. Males, too, molt in and out of nuptial color in and out of breeding. Like the Superb Fairy-wren, the splendid lives and breeds in small groups-with helpers to attend to the nest and is sedentary, maintaining a territory year-round.
In most regions, it frequents rather close-canopied woodland with a fairly open under-storey. It replaces the Superb Fairy-wren in the southwestern woodlands but is much less tolerant of human settlement and at the same time more adaptable to aridity: it ranges through the dry mulga Acacia scrubs of central Australia to the mallee of inland eastern Australia.
SPLENDID FAIRY WREN FULL
The Splendid Fairy-wren (Malurus splendens) is in full breeding plumage, the male is a brilliant incandescent blue.
0 kommentar(er)
