Grasswrens and fairy-wrens.

ADVERTISEMENT from Graeme Chapman To all grasswren fans, For much of my professional career I worked with Ian Rowley of fairy-wren fame and I guess that’s what sparked my initial interest in the grasswrens. It was a challenge! I like to think that my “Grasswrenning around Australia” lectures I gave back in the 1990’s at O’Reilly’s Bird Weeks actually started the current craze about this little known and sometimes very ordinary looking group of birds. If I am wrong about this I am happy to be corrected! I used to suggest that seeing them all was a good excuse to travel all around Australia. I still do! At that time, I had succeeded in photographing most of the species, and even the subspecies which are now being elevated to species status and I did this on film, with manual focus lenses and often with 25 asa Kodachrome film. Another prompt was my article in WINGSPAN magazine Vol 6 No. 1 March 1996 which was essentially an eight page summary of that lecture and that issue sold out in no time. Most people who are keen on grasswrens will have probably already consulted my website, if only to get the sound, which is freely available and of very high quality. I have many hundreds of images of grasswrens, possibly even more than a thousand, I’ve never counted them. Recently, I decided to show more of them off, so on pages 16 and 17 of the TOP SHOTS section of my website I’ve added a few of my better pictures. There are already a few others such as Grey Grasswren scattered through the other TOP SHOT pages. I have been considering preparing a folio of archival quality prints for sale of my better grasswren images – whether I do it or not depends on how much interest there is and I am open to suggestions or enquiries. Many older people can’t hear the higher frequency grasswren calls. That makes it doubly difficult to locate the birds. My advice is don’t even try on windy days. Not only is it more difficult to hear the birds, if you are using replay, they can’t hear you either – and in windy weather, birds sing very little anyway. Also allow plenty of time – grasswrens have much bigger territories than ordinary fairy-wrens and if you just walk in expecting to see them in the same place they were previously, you may just be lucky but mostly you won’t. To all you folks who are planning a grasswren bash in the near future, have a good time and good luck. Such an itinerary will take you to all sorts of far flung places where you’ll see some terrific birds and have memorable experiences that you’ll remember forever. I know, I have. While you’re at it, why not add the fairy-wrens into the mix – that will really keep you busy! The real challenge there is the beautiful blue female of the subspecies dulcis of the Variegated Fairy-wren, which I have yet to see or photograph, in fact I’ve never even seen a photograph. Surely there must be one out there somewhere. The problem is that they live up in the sandstone along with the White-throated Grasswrens which are now the most difficult grasswren of all to locate. Cheers Graeme Chapman www.graemechapman.com.au