The classic case of this is the female Petroica species, which are identified largely by whether or not there is white in the tail or wing:
- Petroica rodinogaster has no white in the wing or tail
- Petroica rosea has white in the tail but not the wing
- Petroica phoenica has white in both the tail and wing
- Female Petroica boodang has a faintly scarlet patch on her breast, like the blue of female Malurus amabilis.
- Female Petroica goodenovii has a distinct red patch above her bill
- Female Malurus melanocephalus and Malurus leucopterus are pale in colour, yellowish-grey with no eye-ring. They can be distinguished because:
- leucopterus has (a very pale) blue in the tail
- melanocephalus has no blue in that tail
- Female Malurus lamberti and Malurus elegans are a greyish-blue above and have a dark greyish-blue tail. They can be distinguished because:
- lamberti has an orange-chestnut-coloured bill
- elegans has a black bill like male fairywrens
- Female Malurus pulcherrimus has duller greyish-blue upperparts, a bright blue tail and dark brown bill, lores and eye-ring of the same colour with no faintly white eye-ring.
- Female Malurus coronatus has a grey-blue head with a black bill and a deep chestnut patch next to that bill
- Female Malurus cyaneus and Malurus splendens are entirely brown with no bluish tinge, with a chestnut bill and lore. They can be distinguishedbecause:
- cyaneus has a basically brown tail like Malurus melanocephalus
- splendens has a blue tail, similar in colour to Malurus melanocephalus and Malurus leucopterus.
|Female Purple-Crowned Fairywren (Malurus coronatus)|
The pictures shown for species found near Perth, and those at BirdLife (‘Fifty Shades of Brown’) are actually clearer in the field than guidebooks, or at least those guidebooks where fairywrens are not shown in real habitat. In fact, these pictures make one treat guidebooks with caution, though I have known to do this for some time despite their great value.