Song of male winter wren tinkles like tiny bells

Winter wrens have a beautiful song – if you can hear it.

On a Fields Pond Audubon Center birding trip, I noted that Julie Keene knew bird songs well. That’s a rare skill. I was looking for someone to take over my Breeding Bird Survey route. My hearing isn’t good enough to do it anymore. I have trouble hearing the song of the winter wren. I can hear them within 50 feet, but no farther.

This Breeding Bird Survey, done for the U.S. Geological Survey, requires one to be at the start at 4:18 a.m. (a half-hour before dawn), and make 50 stops, a half-mile apart, and note every bird one hears or sees at each stop.

These surveys are done by birders and biologists throughout the United States and southern Canada.

For the first time in 20 years, my role was the “recorder,” who filled in the forms. Julie Keene’s role was that of “birder.” She called out the species she heard, “Parula warbler, blue-headed vireo, three chickadees, two hermit thrushes, winter wren.”

OK, back to the winter wren. It is a tiny brown bird that lives in the shady forest, and hops along on mossy, fallen trees. It creeps along a log like a little brown mouse. Its short brown tail is carried straight up.

The male sings a beautiful song. With imagination, it sounds like the tinkling of tiny silver bells. The song goes on and on in the dark mossy forest.

The song attracts a female winter wren. She checks out the male wren, and the territory. When the male wren has attracted and won over a female, the male starts several nests in openings in the soil and roots of an upturned tree.

The female selects the best site and lines the nest with hair of deer and feathers of birds. While the female incubates the eggs, the male keeps on singing.

Julie Keene knew that song well. She heard it nine times in 50 stops. I was delighted to write down each winter wren, even though I couldn’t hear most of them.

When we had finished the 50 stops and were driving home, we talked about the survey. I told Julie that nine winter wrens were a record for this route. She said she loves that song, but hasn’t ever seen a winter wren.

I thought about the times I’d seen them – feeding young, singing, hopping along a log, making a nest in a woodpile – it made up for not hearing them!

I said, “Someday, let’s try to find the winter wren that lives at the top of the ravine trail at Fields Pond. Maybe you’ll see it, and I’ll be close enough to hear it.”

For information on Fields Pond Audubon Center, call 989-2591.