Asian Fairy Bluebird

Asian Fairy Bluebird

The Asian Fairy Bluebird, Irena puella, is a medium-sized, arboreal passerine bird.

This fairy-bluebird breeds across tropical southern Asia from the Himalayan foothills, India and Sri Lanka east to Indonesia. This species is found in moist hill-forest. Two or three eggs are laid in a small cup nest in a tree.

The adult Asian Fairy Bluebird is about 27 cm long. The male has glossy, iridescent blue upperparts, and black underparts and flight feathers. The female and first year male are entirely dull blue-green.

The Asian Fairy Bluebird eats fruit, nectar and some insects. Its call is a liquid two note glue-it.

Male. The whole upper plumage, the lesser wing-coverts, and the under tail-coverts shining ultramarine-blue with lilac reflections; sides of the head and the whole lower plumage deep black ; greater wing-coverts, quills, and tail black, some of the coverts tipped with blue, and the middle tail-feathers glossed with blue. Female. The whole upper plumage, the lesser wing-coverts, and the lower tail-coverts brownish blue, with the edges of the feathers brighter ; middle tail-feathers and the outer webs of all the others, except the outer pair, like the upper plumage ; remainder of tail dark brown ; primaries and secondaries dark brown ; the greater wing-coverts, primary- coverts, and tertiaries dark brown, with a blue tinge on the outer webs ; sides of the head and whole lower plumage blue, very similar to the upper parts. The young are like the female. The male changes into adult plumage about March, and the change takes place without a moult ; the feathers of the upper parts first become fringed with bright blue ; the tail-coverts next become changed ; the lower plumage takes the longest to change, and young birds may frequently be met with having the lower plumage mixed black and dull blue, hut the upper plumage that of the adult.

Asian Fairy Bluebird belongs to the following groups:

Birds and Creatures of Flight, EF Welcome Center, The Birds and Zoophoria (2 per day, approval required) Available for sale as

Greeting Cards, Matted Prints, Laminated Prints, Mounted Prints, Canvas Prints and Framed Prints