Tag: Winter Wren

No, I’m not referring to that no account, poor excuse of a season we witnessed a few months back.  What I was finally able to do was capture a few pics of a Winter Wren.  I have never been able to get more than a fleeting glance at this skulking bird as it somehow is able to hide by rarely moving more than a few feet off the ground.  This spring, however, I was in the right place (Shaw Nature Reserve) and was lucky to find a few of these birds and follow them long enough to get a few poor quality images.

With more than 35 recognized subspecies, the Winter Wren has an enormous range and is the only member of the wren family to be found outside of the Americas.

According to NatGeo, “Per unit weight the Winter Wren delivers its song with 10 times more power than a crowing rooster”.  I was able to hear the quite complex and rapid musical songs as I watched one or two of these birds foraging.  I could tell they were merely partial songs and not delivered with full attention and voice as is often the case of migrating birds, but I was still awed by the sounds.

The photo above focuses on the quite short tail of the Winter Wren, a distinguishing and obvious field mark.

Although the next photo is quite poor, I like that it captured the typical squat, egg-like shape of the bird.

Finally, I thought I would add an image of a House Wren that I took on the same day, the first of this species that I found this spring.  Notice the much longer tail and the lack of any barring pattern on the flanks forward of the legs.  A generally paler bird.

 

-OZB