Bathing Beauties

Choosing a briefly sunny moment in between rain showers these Lovely Fairy-Wrens (Malurus amabilis), endemic to Daintree, enjoy a good bath.  No female visible yesterday but I know there has been some recent nesting activity so she may have had to forego the pleasures of a splash.

On a recent walk I did find a nest, low down and well hidden in some undergrowth, but after catching a glimpse of the tiny fledgling that had been calling I left the area as I didn’t want to draw further attention to it.

Lovely Fairy-wrens seem much more timid than some of their cousins – such as the Superb Fairy-wren (Malurus cyaneus)which is found further south.  I was only able to coax some of our ‘Lovelies’  to visit a bird bath once we had plenty of cover nearby for them to retreat into.  They rarely appear in the open, being most often observed moving across from one patch of shrubs and vines to another.

Like much of the east coast of Australia we have been experiencing a lot of rain – our total for September was 295.5mm and so far this month we have recorded 185.5mm.  Needless to say it is fairly wet underfoot and our swamps are all overflowing. 

As our outdoor activities have been somewhat curtailed it is delightful to be able to observe birds visiting the bird baths and helping themselves to some of our extra fruit which is placed on a table nearby.

We are making the most of every sunny moment and enjoying the chorus of frogs calling at night.

This last photo shows how seriously these tiny birds take their bathing!  Even ‘though it is a little blurred I couldn’t resist sharing it.