The little bird with the big voice

Jenny Bennion delves into the world of the wren, the garden familiar who is more often heard than seen.

I’ve always loved wrens, ever since being a child and being referred to as "Little Jenny Wren". I still have a necklace, the pendant being a wren on an old farthing coin. However, these diminutive garden birds have a surprising superpower –their voice. Weighing little more than a pound coin, only the goldcrest is a smaller feathered visitor to our garden, the wren has one of the loudest songs of all garden birds.

It’s hard not to be enthralled when catching a glimpse of the everindustrious wren. Dappled brown plumage, fading to a paler underbelly is topped with a remarkably erect tail, seeming like a cantilever to its round body. Often described as "dumpy" this seems like a cruel term for the teddy bear rotundness of this charming little bird.

The word wren is thought to come from the Anglo-Saxon wrœnno, meaning lascivious. These days it infers lewd or lustful, but in older times it was applied to people who were small, busy, quick and energetic - just like the bird that we see flitting around our gardens. Their wings blur with an almost hummingbird speed as they zoom in and out of shelter searching for their favourite food of insects and spiders.

The wren’s Latin name, troglodytes, means cave-dweller and refers to their habit of squeezing into small cracks and crevices in rocks, around fallen branches, in bushes and undergrowth, either to find food or to build nests.

Folklore holds the wren as the King of the Birds. The story goes that all the birds gathered to decide the crown by seeing who could fly the highest. The eagle easily won this contest, only to be pipped at the post by an industrious wren who had hitched a ride on its back and leapt into the air at the last moment.

History aside it is their song that really makes the wren the King of the birds for me. Pound for pound the wren’s voice is reputedly ten times louder than a cockerels’ morning crow. Their song usually consists of a flurry of high-pitched, metallic, ringing notes interspersed with softer trills, usually in the second half of their five to seven-second song.

Like all birds, the wren’s song is produced by the syrinx, or voice-box. This is located at the far end of their larynx just above the lungs and is dual chambered which allows them to sing two notes simultaneously. And wrens do this with great gusto to create their jubilant and loud song.

Wrens are naturally territorial, and this is thought to be why they have such a magnificent song. During breeding season males build several domed nests made of moss, lichen and leaves, throughout their territory. The females then conduct a series of viewings before choosing their preferred nest and lining it with feathers.

A clutch of five to seven white eggs speckled with red are laid, hatching around two weeks later, and fledging after a further 15 to 20 days. A second brood usually follows. At this time the female really comes into her voice, singing loudly to deter anything that may threaten her nest.

Whilst wrens might be our most common breeding bird, with 8.6 million breeding territories, a hard winter can see their numbers fall significantly.

Taking simple steps such as leaving lots as messy areas in your garden for wrens to nest, shelter and forage in can make all the difference for this tiny but noisy garden favourite.