The white-winged fairywren (Malurus leucopterus) is a small passerine bird native to Australia. Australia’s fairy-wrens have the reputation of being brightly coloured, and the White-winged Fairy-wren is one of the most striking.
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The adult male in its striking, breeding plumage is either dark blue or glossy black with white shoulder patches, and it has a mid to dark blue tail. The glossy black plumage is found on the subspecies edouardi, found only on Dirk Hartog and Barrow Islands off Western Australia, while the dark blue is found on the mainland subspecies, leuconotus. The adult female has a drab grey-brown crown, back and wings, grey tail faintly washed blue. She is whitish below and her flanks and lower underparts are washed dull buff. Immature birds are like the female. The male does not obtain full plumage until its fourth year. This species is also called the Black-and-White, Blue-and-White or White-backed Fairy-wren; or the Pied, White-backed or White-winged Wren.
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The white-winged fairywren is found from Dirk Hartog Island and coast of Western Australia east across mainland (not north) to central and southern Queensland, central New South Wales and NW Victoria. It is replaced by the Red-backed Fairy-wren north of 20 degrees South.
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The white-winged fairywren eats insects, especially beetles(Coleoptera) and also spiders (Araneae). It also eats some seeds of the plant genera Rhagodia, Chenopodium (saltbush for example), Euphorbia (Spurges) and Portulaca. Its small size allows this species to glean from leaves and stems of dense shrubs. It also hop-searches on the ground, and makes brief aerial sorties to catch insects.
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Populations of White-winged fairywrens have decreased due to various types of habitat destruction – clearing of chenopod shrublans and of lignum thickets in periodically flooded lake beds, in western New South Wales; clearing of native vegetation in the Murray-Mallee region; heavy grazing of bluebrush and saltbush areas; and irrigation in in the Murray valley. Populations are also adversely affected, at least in the short term, by burning of their habitat. Increased salinisation in some areas appears to be of benefit.