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Re: winter wren



> 	Can anyone tell me if they are indeed uncommon down here in the
> piedmont, or is it the case that they are quite common but
> consistently overlooked?

It depends on how you define uncommon vs. common.  For the Chapel Hill 
Bird Club checklist they're listed as uncommon because the average number 
reported on local Christmas Bird Counts over the years is within a certain 
range (which I don't recall offhand).  They're certainly easy to overlook. 

Here are some entertaining messages from Birdchat about the Winter King, 
one of my favorite birds ...

------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date:         Thu, 3 Feb 2000 17:14:15 +0100
From:         Ole Post <olp@POST5.TELE.DK>
Subject:      Tribute to the Winter Wren

Greetings from Denmark,  Scandinavia.

"Look, Grandpa!" she shouted  "a mouse!"
I got a glimpse of a small, brown ball racing across the lawn.
"No", I said, "it was a bird, a Winter Wren"
"How can it be a bird, when it was running like this?"

I sure saw her point. The Wren was flying only an inch above the ground 
with wingbeats so fast, you could not follow. Here in wintertime you got 
to be on your marks to catch sight of this very special little fellow. But 
they are around all right. Not at the open, not at the feeders, but 
foraging on their own along hedges, in the thickness of undergrowth and 
along the fences. Being so small is an advantage when it comes to finding 
insects and spiders tugged away for winter where other birds have to give 
in. But there is a disadvantage as well. Being small means loosing body 
temperature faster. A hard winter with below zero temps (Celsius) will 
decimate the population.  

Why not migrate south like any other insectivorous?
My granddaughter knew why: It can not stand to run all the way !

Make no mistake now. The tiny Winter Wren has an enormous ego.
The male Wren is a macho guy.

When I went out to refill the feeders and left the door open, our 
longhaired young Persian Cat showed herself in the door. She dared not go 
more than a couple of feet outside - never been allowed - and hit herself 
under our garden table. The usual gang disappeared. But out popped the 
Winter Wren from the closely entangled wiry web of the large Clematis. 
Aggressively scolded the cat and moving around agitated, closer and closer 
to the confused cat, showing no respect. Get out of my territory!  

When spring comes he changes even more character. Singing with a truly 
surprising force - his entire body visibly vibrating with energy - he 
often chooses a wide open spot and tells everybody: here I am, here I 
rule. At the same time he starts building nests. Several of them. 3-4-5 
different places he forms the foundation of nests and invites the ladies 
to have a close look.  Being the king of the undergrowth, he believes he 
is entitled to bigamy. When the females agrees to the spot, they get 
another song, and he will finish the nest. Quite an engineer, this Wren. 
The nest will be closed, forming a large round construction of moss. The 
final touch making the nest cozy is carried out by both sexes, using 
feathers and other soft material.  

This is no easy doing. With a bodyweight of only a few grams, he can not 
shape the nest, less the material is moist. So rainy days are when he is 
most active. If a dry spell sets in, you can see the Winter Wren dipping 
nest material in birdbaths. 5 -8 eggs are laid, and having 2, even 3 
females in his kingdom, he sure is preparing the survival of the species 
against next winter.  

The Winter Wren may be small, but he is standing tall when it comes to 
defending what he believes is his.  

Ole Post
Hillerod, Denmark, Europe
olp@post5.tele.dk

------- End of forwarded message -------

------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date:    Fri, 4 Feb 2000 09:23:56 +0100
From:    Wim Vader <wim@IMV.UIT.NO>
Subject: the Winter King

TROGLODYTES TROGLODYTES, THE WINTER KING  


Ole Post has done it again! He sure is a master in drawing up a portrait 
of a common bird that is so lively that on reading it you see the bird in 
front of your eyes.  

In Dutch the Winter Wren is called the Winterkoning, the winter king, and 
the origin of this name lies in the same legend, that has resulted in 
names like Kinglet (or, in Norwegian, Fuglekonge=bird king, for the 
Goldcrest and relatives).I feel, however that the story does make much 
more sense with the Winter Wren as a protagonist, precisely because of its 
combative personality.  

The story goes as follows: the birds decided to choose a king. As always 
in such circumstances, the criteria by which the choice should be made 
caused trouble: the guillemot proposed the deepest diver as king, the 
flamingo the longest neck. But the eagle, the strongest of them all. laid 
down the law: we choose that bird as king who can fly the highest, or 
else....'  

So all the birds, except the poor penguins and ostriches, flew up. And 
soon it became clear that the eagle had made a prudent choice of criterium-
--one bird after another had to give up, until finally only the eagle 
soared above all the others. Even eagles need to descend after a while, 
however. And at that exact moment the little Winter Wren came out of the 
back feathers where he had been hiding all the time, flew a little bit 
higher still, and crowed with typical wren exuberance: I am the king, I am 
the king of all the birrrrrds!   

This was clearly cheating, though, and all the other birds ganged up and 
ostracized the wren, so that it only feels safe in the worst tangles and 
brush-piles, where the others can't get at it. In winter, though, when 
many of the other birds have left the area, it regularly comes forth, 
sticks up its head, and tail, and thrillers: I am the king, I am the king 
of all the birrrds!! And that is why this bird in Dutch is called 
winterkoning, the winter king.  

I think you will agree, that this story works much better with the wren as 
protagonist than with the kinglets, feisty as those also are.  

                                                Wim Vader, Tromsų Museum
                                                9037 Tromsų, Norway
                                                wim@imv.uit.no

------- End of forwarded message -------

-- 
Charles W. "Will" Cook                  w 919-660-7423
http://www.duke.edu/~cwcook            cwcook@duke.edu
Box 90340, Biology Dept., Duke Univ., Durham, NC 27708