‘So tiny and so vulnerable’: what chance will one of Australia’s smallest birds have against a rocket launchpad?

The southern emu-wren: ‘about the size of a matchbox with a tail about the size of a pencil’. Photograph: Martin Pelanek/Getty Images/iStockphoto

The southern emu-wren, one of Australia’s smallest birds, weighs just seven grams, about as much as two teaspoons of water.

More tail than bird, its six upright tail feathers make up more than half its length and the males have a distinctive sky-blue patch of feathers on their upper chest and throat.