We completed our transect! In 8 days of birding, we traveled from Brookfield Conservation Park, east to Bendigo, then north to Broken Hill, saw 419 individual fairywrens, drove 2500kms, and saw many bird species new to us. Allison and I were joined by our good friend, Ian Hoppe, an expert birder and experienced field technician. This is a preliminary update on some of the discoveries and observations we made during the transect. We’ll follow up with a more in-depth update sometime after the Holiday season.
Finding #1: Superb Fairywrens are everywhere! Before our transect, we thought of Superbs as a species common around human-influenced habitat, including gardens and roadsides, but also common to natural habitat boundaries, like forest-grassland edges, or anywhere where shrubby bushes like lantana are common. But now after the transect, we realize just how adaptable this species really is, and how many habitats they can live in.
Our finding began while searching for Purple-backed Fairywrens in Bendigo National Park just north of Bendigo, NSW. We were in a fairly tall eucalypt forest with a low shrub understory that looked like perfect habitat for Purple-backeds. Naturally, when we first heard fairywren calls, we all looked at each other with excitement, spread out to increase our chances of seeing the birds, and ran over to where the calls were coming from. Allison stopped first and said “I see a bright male Superb…”, I thought she was mistaken at first so I pressed forward, but then Ian confirmed, and I saw for myself. Sure enough, two bright male Superbs popped up out of the understory and flew off, followed by a female!
Superb Fairywren Habitat from Bendigo National Park
This scenario repeated itself over and over again, showing that, unbeknownst to us, Superb Fairywrens can indeed live in the forest. But it only got weirder from there. Next, we found Superb Fairywrens overlapping with White-winged Fairywrens in a salt-lake habitat dominated by short saltwort bushes. While published research has shown these species can overlap, seeing a dry-dwelling, inland species like the White-wings overlap with a wet-dwelling, coastal species like Superbs in person was still surprising.
Salt lake habitat where we found Superbs and White-wings overlapping. Compare how different this habitat is to the Bendigo National Park photos above. Superbs are so adaptable!
The ultimate kicker was when we made it up to Broken Hill, our site furthest north, and deepest into the outback. Allison discovered a pair of Superb Fairywrens (one bright male and a female) living in the garden of a local school while on walk. Granted, the habitat in that garden did not look too different from gardens along the east coast, as there were large bushes and shrubs and the vegetation was fairly green, but if you’ve ever looked at a map of NSW, you’ll know that Broken Hill is surrounded by nothing but outback dirt and sheep stations for at least 200kms on all sides. Before Allison’s sighting, Superb Fairywrens had never been seen as far inland as Broken Hill (according to eBird). Given the unlikeliness of the population actually ranging that far naturally (most sightings cut off around Mildura, VIC when heading north into NSW), we’re wondering if this is a small introduced population. We spent a little bit of time looking for the birds again the next day, but could not relocate them. So if you’re ever passing through Broken Hill and see Superb Fairywrens we’d love to know!
Finding #2: Purple-backed and White-winged fairywren habitat is extremely fragmented at the southern end of their ranges in Victoria, especially for the White-wings. This finding made us wonder how these birds adapt to their surroundings and whether birds are able to move between populations at all.
Finding #3: Any Aussie could probably have told us this before we left, but it was fun to see for ourselves: the habitat between Bendigo and Broken Hill is so different and can change so quickly! It was really fun to watch as the plant and animal communities changed as we travelled along the rainfall gradient from wet to dry.
Look for a more detailed update with some data come January/February. Until then, happy holidays! Keep us in mind when you’re out birding! Sightings at all times of year are important to our project. And as always, let us know if you have any ideas about the questions we raised here, or if you have any observations that match with ours or are different from ours! Get in touch via facebook (Fairywren Project) or email: fairywrenproject@gmail.com.
Joe, Allison, and Ian
