Species Fact Profile: Fairy Bluebird (Irena puella)

                                                        Fairy Bluebird

                                             Irena puella (Latham, 1790)

Range: Southeast Asia (a disjointed population on the west coast of India, and a larger range through the remainder of Southeast Asia, from, Myanmar east to Vietnam and south through Malaysia), Sri Lanka, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Indonesia (Sumatra, Borneo, Java)

Habitat:  Rainforest and deciduous forest up to 1600 meters elevation.  Sometimes occurs in agricultural plantations, but generally prefers undisturbed habitat

Diet: Fruit (especially figs), Nectar, Insects 

Social Grouping:  Pairs, Small Flocks (6-8)/  Will congregate around food sources

Reproduction:  Breeding from February through April.  Males display for females with elaborate vocalizations, which stimulates her to build a nest.  They may raise their wings and twitch their bodies and tails from side to side as a dance.  The female constructs a shallow cup-shaped nest of moss and twigs about 6-10 meters above the ground in small trees.  Seem to prefer nesting in dense forests. Usually lays 2 eggs, which are greenish-white marked with brown and measure 1.14 x 0.77 centimeters.  Both parents care for the eggs and young.  Eggs hatch after 13-14 days.  Chicks are altricial when hatching.  Chicks are able to fly at about 12 days old, but aren’t independent until about 42 days of age.  Sexual maturity reached at 1 year of age

Lifespan: 10-15 Years

      Conservation Status:  IUCN Least Concern

• Body length 24-27 centimeters, weigh 75 grams.  Females are slightly smaller than males.  Northern populations are slightly larger on average than southern ones
• Very sexually dimorphic.  Among males, the crown, back of the neck, back, and upper tail are an iridescent blue.  The side of the head, tail, wing coverts, and dorsal surface, are jet black (the blue portion of the plumage forms what looks like an hourglass pattern when viewed from the back).  Females and immature males are a dull brownish-blue.  The bill, legs, and claws are black, while the iris is red with black pupils and the eyelids are pinkish.  Highly visible and very striking in direct sunlight, but can be very hard to see in shaded forest conditions
• Sometimes called the Asian fairy bluebird to differentiate it from Irena cyanogaster, the Philippine fairy bluebird, the only other member of the genus and the family. 
• Pairs stay in touch with a loud contact call and a sharp whistle.  Not migratory, but may wander according to seasonal abundance of different fruits.  They may also gather in flocks to come down to the forest floor to bathe so as to have more eyes to keep watch for predators.  
• Populations thought to be declining due to habitat loss and fragmentation, loss of fruiting trees.  Illegal collection from the wild for the pet trade may also have an impact
• First record of the species in North American collections was of two imported by the Brookfield Zoo in 1935.  The first known captive hatch of this species in North America was in 1960, presumably in a private collection, with the first zoo hatching from a pair of wild-caught parents at the Brookfield Zoo in 1976