A little bird that you will rarely see at the bird table but will regularly see in your garden or wider countryside this time of year is the wren.

Wrens are present all year round and are one of the few birds that will sing all year round. Their song is extraordinarily loud for such a small bird and is quite a pretty song with a big flourish at the end, it always sounds like a tiny fanfare to me. Wrens are small and reddish brown on top and pale below with a light speckling all over, they have a thin pointed beak and a pale stripe above the eye which can make them look quite cross.

They are quite mouse-like in their behaviour as they dart about over logs and into the undergrowth though sometimes, they will perch to get a better look at you and lift their tail up in a perky, confident sort of way.

Wrens were once thought to be a female robin, perhaps because the alarm call between these two species is very similar, they are often seen in the same places and in many species the female birds are quite brownish in comparison to the male.  However, male and female wrens look alike to our eyes and they are in a very different species group to the Robin.

The scientific name for a wren is one of the easiest to remember I think, being ‘Troglodytes troglodytes’ (pronounced Trog-low-dye-tees). The word means cave dweller and is thought to relate to how they build their nests. If you can imagine a tiny cave made of moss you are some way to picturing a wren nest. The nest is dome or almost egg shaped, with a mossy exterior and a little hole to allow the birds to enter. The nest is lined in feathers or wool and each one is made by the male bird. Male wrens are very industrious and build several nests each year, usually around 6 but sometimes over 10 and then the female chooses which one will be the best one that they actually raise a family in. Nests are built in all sorts of strange places such as the corner of a shed, under a bridge, in the bottom of a bigger bird’s nest, in a coat hung on the wall, even in vehicles still regularly used!

Wrens eat insects and they will forage for these amongst the cracks and crevices in stone, under bark, in dead wood, amongst leaves and even in carrion. Dead wood is a very rich hunting ground for wrens due to the number of invertebrates supported and for the frost-free hollows and crevices which are incredibly valuable for wrens during periods of snow or extreme cold. The hollows are useful not only in providing a larder for the birds but also as a safe place to sleep. Wrens are so tiny and can be very vulnerable in the cold, so they tend to roost communally, sometimes in large numbers, even up to 60 in a nest box!

Do keep an eye out for this much underrated little bird and listen out for its song which sometimes can be heard over a kilometer away!

With special thanks to Gillian Fisher, Ecologist, for her article and to Christian Poulson for the photography.