Southern Emu-wren
Stipiturus malachurus· 细尾鹩莺科(1 photos)
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Southern Emu-wren
15-19 cm, incl. tail (9-12 cm) Male: crown tawny-rufous, streaked darker; eyebrow/throat lavender-blue; ear coverts tawny-grey with fine pale streaks; upperparts grey-brown, strongly streaked black; underparts rich tawny-buff. Tail long, sparse, nearly twice length of body, erect when excited. Female: no blue; throat/underparts rich tawny-buff. Juvenile: male: paler blue throat; no blue eyebrow; tail shorter. Pairs, family parties: shy; moves nimbly through dense low cover, bounces over ground, climbs tussocks, open shrubs. Flight feeble, tail streaming.
- Other name
- Button-grass Wren; Sticktail.
- Similar Species
- Mallee and Rufous-crowned Emu-wrens: males have streaked blue ear coverts; note range. Fairy-wrens.
- Voice
- male: like fairy-wren but higher-pitched, insect-like; contact-call: splintered, 'prip prip' and running high-pitched notes. Alarm call: high-pitched 'seee'.
- Habitat
- heaths with 'grasstrees', banksias, hakeas; rushes, sedges, scrubby thickets; lignum, montane gullies, sub-alpine grasslands, heathy woodlands. In Tas., button-grass plains, montane moors. On Kangaroo I., marginally in mallee-spinifex. In sw. WA, dune-vegetation, sandplain-heaths, dry eucalyptus, acacia-spinifex.
- Breeding
- Sept.-Jan.
- Nest
- domed, of loose fine grass, rootlets, moss; lined with finer grass; low in tussock or dwarf shrub.
- Eggs
- 3; white, tinted pink, minutely dotted, blotched light red-brown at large end.
- Range & Status
- coastal se. and sw. Aust. and Tas., from sea level to over 1000 m. In WA, from Shark Bay-Dirk Hartog I., s. and e. to Israelite Bay, inland to Wongan Hills-Hyden-Norseman. In se. Aust., Kangaroo I.-s. Eyre Pen., s. Mt Lofty Ras., s. Fleurieu Pen. and coastal se. SA; in Vic., inland to Grampians-Colac-Yellingbo and s. foothills of Divide in Gippsland; in NSW, inland to S. Tablelands-Blue Mts-Kanangra Boyd NP-Gibraltar Ra. NP.; n. coastally to Cooloola NP-Fraser I. (se. Q). Habitats fragmented; locally common to vulnerable or endangered, according to race. Sedentary.
- Distribution key to races
- 1. Stipiturus malachurus malachurus 2. Stipiturus malachurus littleri 3. Stipiturus malachurus polionotum 4. Stipiturus malachurus intermedius 5. Stipiturus malachurus halmaturinus 6. Stipiturus malachurus parimeda 7. Stipiturus malachurus westernensis 8. Stipiturus malachurus hartogi
