Wrens' Music

by Helen Manson Andrews

Editors note:  From time to time we like to add some of Helen Andrew’s articles she wrote for the Taconic Press. I hope you will enjoy this article..

I heard the little house wren chattering around the yard and I was glad to have them back.  They can be found in parks, open woods and around farmland as well as your yard.  The male arrives first and establishes a territory and often builds dummy nests in available nest sites.  When the female arrives, they may or may not accept the chosen site and incomplete nest.  If she does, she will finish it by making a nest cup of grass, plant fibers, feathers or hair to the back of the twigs that have been placed in the nest box, natural cavity, fence post or old woodpecker hole.  Now she will lay her eggs, five to eight, and incubate them along.  The pair is not permanently mated and may form a new pair bonds between broods.

The house wren is just one of the wren family that we have here.  And the most common and the best known.  The Carolina wren is larger and not seen in most yards.  It can be found in brushy woods, thickets, farmland and garden areas.  They, too, nest in cavities, often in out buildings, old stone walls and under bridges.  Both the male and the female build the bulky nest of leaves, twigs, rootlets and debris and often it is domed over.  The female incubates the eggs, four to eight of them, and the male feeds his mate as she sits on the nest.

The winter wren is the smallest and will nest in damp woods, along streams and under upturned roots.  Like the house wren, the male winter wren builds dummy nest.  The marsh wren is the fourth member of this family that nests in the county.  They nest in freshwater or brackish marshes and lash their nest to standing cattail, reeds and rushes.  Like the other wrens, the male builds a nest but the female builds the nest for her eggs and places a short sill at the entrance that the male’s nest lacks.

All the wrens have a cascade of bubbly song but each one is quite different.  The winter wren is the most beautiful singer of all the longest song, a real joy to listen to. They all eat insects and will take a large quantity to feed the growing young.

Wings Over Dutchess, May 2005
Originally published in the Taconic Press, May 1988

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