Unlimited edition. 18 x 24 inch, museum-quality poster on matte paper.

The female splendid fairy-wren is often described as a “dull-colored” bird, but she’s only “dull” alongside the electric blue breeding plumage of her male counterpart . I find the female’s combination of warm alabaster, khaki, and blanched indigos and corals lovely…and, well, less ostentatious.

Despite “wren” being part of the bird’s common name, fairy-wrens don’t look or behave like North American wrens. Watching videos of splendid fairy-wrens foraging, I thought of bushtits (Psaltriparus minimus). The lively fairy-wren flocks move through low shrubs or tree canopies in a frenetic manner called “hop-searching,” a term I haven’t come across in conjunction with bushtits, but that I’ll be using from now on. Like bushtits, splendid fairy-wrens are insectivores, and the active foraging – hopping here, there, and everywhere, heads cocking this way and that – allows them to cover a lot of ground, spotting and snatching spiders, ants, and other insects all the while.

Although the population of splendid fairy-wrens appears to be stable, they’re hard to find in more developed areas of Australia. The species does not adapt well to human-altered landscapes, which tend to lack suitable undergrowth – apparently, we humans don’t love thickets. Another reason the low-foraging and low-nesting birds don’t thrive in suburban or urban contexts is the presence of introduced predators (e.g., house cats or black rats, the latter of which prey on eggs).

Note: These archival poster prints feature rich, appealing colors. I encourage customers to take care in handling them until they are framed/protected for display; the darker colors on the matte paper can be scratched. They ship rolled, so customers need to flatten them before framing (or have their framer do so).

Charitable Sales Model: Whenever one of these poster prints is purchased, a charitable contribution equal to 10% of the print’s cost (or $3.60) is made to a nonprofit working to tackle environmental or social challenges. Read more about my charitable sales model here.