Wildlife Watching Wednesday: The Singing Carolina Wren
By: Tom Berg
Backyard birds come in all shapes and sizes. There are robins, finches, sparrows, cardinals, blue jays and many others. But one of the smallest and most secretive is the diminutive Carolina wren. Yet despite their small size and shy nature, Carolina wrens are real powerhouses when it comes to singing. These birds sing their songs loud and proud!
The funny thing is that Carolina wrens prefer to stay out of sight and in the shadows while singing. Have you ever seen one? They are more brightly colored than our normal house wrens, with reddish-brown feathers on top and a sharply upturned tail. They also have a bright white eyebrow stripe which makes identification pretty easy.
Carolina wrens prefer overgrown, tangled areas for nesting and searching for food. Thick bushes, brush piles and fence lines choked by vines and other vegetation are favorite locations for them. They can often be heard singing loudly from inside this type of dense cover, only occasionally peeking out or flitting out among the tops of the tangled branches. Intruders are scolded loudly and usually driven away.
Male wrens do most of the loud singing, with the females sometimes accompanying them with supporting musical notes as they sing a harmonized duet. Males really love to sing, and they have been known to sing short songs more than two thousand times in a single day.
Insects are the main food item for Carolina wrens, with beetles, spiders and caterpillars making up the bulk of their prey. But they also eat plenty of other insects, too, like crickets, moths and leafhoppers. They have also been known to catch and eat small tree frogs among the thick vegetation. When available, they will readily eat berries, fruit pulp and various types of seeds.
Carolina wrens might be small in stature, but they are mighty in spirit. If you live in the eastern half of the U.S., keep an eye out for these interesting birds!
Tom Berg is an award-winning writer and photographer and has been a freelance writer since 1993. He is also the Executive Director of the Hoosier Outdoor Writers organization in Indiana and is a member of several other writers groups.
