Meet The Purple-Crowned Fairy-Wren, The Most Faithful Of All The Fairy-Wrens (7 Pics)

The purple crowned fairy-wren is not an easy bird to miss. With its unique violet-purple crown and perky blue tail grabbing all the attention. It’s quite a small, shy bird and while colouring of plumage will vary according to age, mostly they are brown above, white below, with a long, perky blue tail.

The purple-crowned fairy-wren is known from two subspecies, both of which occur in the Northern Territory (NT). The eastern subspecies, M. c. macgillivayi is known from north-western Queensland and the Gulf hinterland in the NT, extending as far west as the upper Roper River. The western Known locations of the western purple-crowned fairy-wren subspecies, M. c. coronatus occurs from the Victoria River catchment west to the north Kimberley,Western Australia (WA). In WA, the species is found along some of the river systems in the Kimberley. Within this range, purple- crowned fairy-wrens are almost entirely restricted to a narrow band around well- vegetated river channels.