Grey Fantail
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| Grey Fantail | ||||||||||||||
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 Grey Fantail. | ||||||||||||||
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| Rhipidura fuliginosa Sparrman, 1787 |
The Grey Fantail (Rhipidura fuliginosa) is a small insectivorous bird. It is a very common sight in all parts of Australia bar the deepest deserts in the west, and also in New Zealand (where its Maori name is Piwakawaka), New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, the New Hebrides and New Caledonia.
The Grey Fantail is plain in colour: mid to dark grey or grey-brown above, lighter below, with a white throat, white markings over the eye, and (depending on the race) either white-edged or entirely white outer tail feathers.
Colour, however, is not the Grey Fantail's hallmark: it is movement, for during waking hours the bird is almost never still. It flits from perch to perch, sometimes on the ground but mostly on the twigs of a tree or any other convenient object, looking out for flying insects.