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The Winter Wren, a deep, gray-brown all over, is much darker than the two wrens familiar to most Virginians. The Carolina Wren, the color of a copper penny, is just under five inches long and is with us throughout the year. Even now, in February, I hear the male’s loud, assertive and optimistic song every morning. It seems to reverberate in the chill winter air.
The other common wren, the House Wren, only 4 1/4 inches long, will return from winter quarters in late April or early May. On arriving in Virginia, this energetic and vocal bird will fill any possible nesting cavity with short sticks. This is in preparation for the imminent arrival of his mate. She will make a selection from his choice of nest sites, throw out the sticks he has used as a sort of down payment, and begin all over again.
Why am I writing about the Winter Wren? It’s a bird most readers are unlikely to see. Elusive and shy, this feathered mite acts more like a mouse than a bird. Besides its rarity, this wren only comes to the Virginia Piedmont during the winter months, making it well-named.
What intrigues me is that this bird — this species — is “The Wren” of the British Isles, the only wren found there. In England, it fills the ecological niche the House Wren, our Jenny Wren, fills for Virginians.
Have the many hundreds of years living in close proximity to men changed the bird? Why is the Winter Wren only a fitful, flitting shadow in the New World, whereas in Europe it is the common wren of gardens and door yards?
I became so interested in this curious continental shift in bird behavior that I wrote my English friend, Barry Hodson — a serious “twitcher” as bird watchers are called in England. Barry and I had become good friends when I shared my love of Coastal South Carolina birds with him a year or so ago. I wanted more information on this tiny bird with the mouth-filling Latin name, of Troglodytes troglodytes.
This name derives from the Greek term, “a creeper into holes.” It is a fitting name. As the genus and specific name are the same, the Winter Wren is a double creeper into small places.
Barry Hodson sent me a splendid field guide, “The Shell Guide to the Birds of Britain and Ireland.” After studying this book, I want to visit the British Isles more
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