Rufous Fantail
Capturing the Rufous Fantail this year was a tremendous achievement for me as I had been trying to find them for a couple of years. They are also known as the black-breasted rufous-fantail or rufous-fronted fantail. They are 15-16.5cm in size but they are very very quick. The fan like tail when in flight is so striking. The rufous fantail is easily distinguished by their orange-reddish-brown back, rump and base of tail. Their preferred habitate is undergrowth of rainforests, wetter eucalypt forests and gullies, monsoon forests.paperbarks, sub-inland and coastal scrubs, water courses, parks and gardens
They can be very hard to see as they just blend into their environment. They breed from Oct-Feb and their nest is a neat fawn-coloured tailed cup of bark strips, moss, grass, spiders' webs in shaded fork.After they have paired After pairing, both will search for a suitable breeding site but the female has the final say on nest location. Some males have been known to feed their paired females for up to 2-3 weeks before and during the selection of the nest site and building of the nest. The female will lay 3-4 eggs. Both the males and the females give (frequently alternating) parental care, which includes feeding their nestlings and removing their feacal sacs from the nest. I watched as one returned with food and the one sitting on the nest got up and flew away while the one that just return entered the nest and fed the chicks then sat on the eggs waiting for the other one to return, so they shared all duties of care for their chicks. It was just so lovely to watch and capture them on camera
They eat mostly small insects and is mostly an aerial forager, rarely perching during feeding. Prey are found during almost continuous movement in and between vegetation. They stop (perch) for very short periods of time, during which they fan their tails. Much more rarely, they perch for longer than five seconds to survey surroundings.
This is what made it so difficult to capture them, you would see them perch somewhere and by the time your lens found them and focused they were already gone, none the less it was absolutely amazing and I will never forget this experience. Of course always when photographing birds and other wildlife we must remember to respect them, not get to close as to frighten them away or to make them feel threatened. Dedicated to all the Australian Fauna and Flora lost in the 2019/2020 bush fires