Variegated Fairywren

Malurus lamberti

[Update] I originally posted this as Malurus elegans – The Red-winged fairywren. It still looks very much to me like the Red-winged fairywren but due to it’s location it’s almost certainly a Variegated fairywren.

In an effort to get some new material to post I camped myself out the back of the house with a camera for a while. I had a first try with Tom but sitting silently in the bush with a 3 year old was never going work! It turned out to be a productive trip in the end, if this bird is what I think it is I can’t find any reference of it being present in the Sydney area. After 15 minutes or so if sitting a pair of these tiny grey birds came into view, playing and chasing each other through the scrubby undergrowth. They really are small, not including the tail I would say less that 10cm from beak to bottom. Their call was a soft shrill, almost like the cross between a buzzing insect and a cherp.