Males are easily distinguished from females by their distinctive colourings: mostly blue, with a black band across their back and head. This blue turns iridescent when the male is looking for a mate. These ‘coloured’ males are often accompanied by a band of brown ‘jenny wrens’, often assumed to be a harem of females, but a proportion of them are males which have not yet attained their breeding plumage. The contents of these birds’ untidy nests — a clutch of three or four eggs — are not necessarily the progeny of the ‘coloured’ male, as there is much infidelity among female fairy-wrens, with many eggs resulting from extra-pair liaisons. Seen in most habitat types where suitable dense cover and low shrubs occur. They eat insects with grasshoppers their favourite.(Source: Birdlife Australia, n.d.).

Variegated Fairy-wrens are highly sociable birds, living in communal, territorial groups that always consist of a dominant male and female; the rest of the group are young males and females. The breeding male is brightly coloured. The crown and sides of the head are blue, and the shoulder patch is a rich chestnut. Non-breeding males, females and young birds are brownish grey. Their habitat is forest, woodland and shrub land. They feed on insects and a small amount of seeds. The birds feed around the base of small shrubs, and seldom stray into the open. Some food may be found among the bark and foliage of short trees and grasses. (Source: Australian Museum, 2018.).

The Southern Emu-wren is one of Australia’s smallest birds. A fully-grown emu-wren may reach 19 centimetres long, but its elongated tail feathers comprise about two-thirds of this, making the bird’s body a mere 6 centimetres or so long. Their soft high-pitched trills and buzzy alarm calls are difficult to hear. These poor fliers scramble through dense vegetation foraging for insects and spiders. They breed twice in spring/summer and lay three eggs at a time. Less than 500 adults remain. (Source: Birdlife Australia, n.d.).