Grow Your Own Magazine

Lol! I can hear that two tiny wrens have started their 'courtship' behaviour? One of the smallest of birds yet the biggest of sounds! Looks funny if you see them singing, tiny beak opens and closes and out comes this really loud chirping!

Saw one of them this morning hanging upside down in the small rosebush picking off insects - perhaps greenfly on the new shoots, have already squished some g/fly off some clematis shoots.

I think they're one of my favourite birds, but boy are they noisey!

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Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

I love to see starlings singing - the range of sounds they make is incredible. Jeannine told me they are born with a basic 'language' of sounds, but that these sounds vary geographically as if they had a regional dialect!

On top of this they are superb mimics, and will learn extra songs as they grow up, based on things like doorbells or mobile phone ring tones!

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Resistance is fertile

A wren flew into my car once when the boot was open (the back was full of plants) and I had to open all the doors and walk away until it flew out again.

Will they nest in your garden Manda? It would be fantastic to see a fledgeling wren, they must be tiny.

They nest in next doors open porch (in the roof bit somewhere) apparently. Ironic really as she doesn't like birds (the fluttering I think) but he does, so thats okay. On that 'where to put birds nests' link I posted in reply to your question, there's even a woodcrete wrens nest - its cute so had to have one! But the wrens still aren't keen. Oh well time will tell, they often come feeding in our borders and pots on the patio.

- well who wouldn't buy one?

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Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

I aint no ornithologist but I really enjoy the sound of the 'morning chorus' as I always sleep with the window open.
Doesn't really matter to me that they have me awake two or three hours before I NEED to get up!

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

I love to hear 'hooty' owls and will stand out in the cold for ages just to listen. Bliss

We have a wren that has just taken up residence in an old swallows nest one of our out buildings.

It just so happens to be the place I have just re-designated as a gardening tool store though. Imagine my surprise as a wren flew out when I went in to get my gardening fork yesterday - I guess the fork will have to go back somewhere else until "The Wren family" have moved out now

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A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot! (Thomas Edward Brown)

I swear I saw one doing an impression of an ambulance siren once but no one believed me - the men in white coats are on their way...

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A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot! (Thomas Edward Brown)

Oh fab news scarey55, will they stay? 'The male wren makes more than one nest and the female chooses one and lines it' (Oxford 'Birdwatchers Handbook') - pictures of the family soon & later please!

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Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

Scarey55 please give us some updates on your new friends!

Another fascinating factoid about wrens... they have communal roosts in the winter time to conserve warmth, and often roost together in old bird boxes. The maximum number found in a roost so far is 60! All in one bird box!!

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Dwell simply ~ love richly

Blimey, I wouldn't want to be the one at the bottom!

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

Our house has a single storey kitchen on the back and in the winter just before it gets dark we watch the Wrens running along the rail that the hanging baskets hang on and they go under the kitchen roof 20 or so some nights .
Sbp i think i have noisier birds than you this is the time of the year that the WoodPecker do's his head banging job last week it was 7.30 am this week it is 7.15 in april it will be about 6.30 ish in a Oak tree about 35 yards from bedroom window it beats an alarm jacob

Good job you wanted to be awake that early jacob! Oh yeah wait for the martins to come back and start nesting they seem to start their 'chattering & twittering' very early in the morning - I love 'em.

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Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

I think our loudest noise is the resident blackbird 'swearing' at a neighbouring cat! It often happens at dusk - suspect the cat ges kicked out then, and the bird swoops low yelling at the top of her beak!

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Some days you're the statue, some days you're the pigeon!

vegheaven.blogspot.com Updated July 16th 2008

This is exactly how I know when our chickens are being bothered by the local mogs. We have a big family of blackbirds and it always makes me laugh when they act all cross that someone else is using their garden!

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Resistance is fertile

Well the wind has died down now and it is the oystercatchers which get our vote for the noisiest bird! They seem to be having fun though.

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~
Aerodynamically the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn't know that so it goes on flying anyway.
~ Mary Kay Ash

I never knew that about wrens, got any more tip bits Birdie Wife?

weeeelll... *flicks through pages of memory*

1. They are the third smallest British breeding bird, after the firecrest and goldcrest.
2. (I think) they have the loudest song of any bird in comparison to their size - there are louder birds (eg in tropical forests) but weight-for-weight the wren sings loudest.
3. They are closely related to dippers.

Howzat?

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Dwell simply ~ love richly

I never knew that. Not seen one for ages, must go look soon...

Dippers are cool too!

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Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

Very!

I found some more interesting bits in a book about Scottish bird folklore...

4. There are several subspecies of wrens - St Kilda, Shetland and the Hebrides each have their own type of wren which are distinct from those on the mainland.

5. The Latin name Troglodytes troglodytes means 'one who creeps into holes'.

6. There is a Celtic ritual which probably stems from pagan days, which involves the stoning of a wren on what is now St Stephen's day.

I do a talk sometimes about the birds in the area and the folklore and I always end with the tale about the golden eagle and the wren, and they have a disagreement about who is the king of the birds. Thy decide to settle it by seeing who can fly the highest. The eagle sets off, flying higher and higher until the sheep are mere specks on the hill and soaring higher and higher still, he's above even the mountain tops and clouds and can see the wren nowhere. He thinks he has won the contest, until... he feels a tickle in the feathers on his head and out pops the wren. So that is how the wren was crowned king of the birds!

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Dwell simply ~ love richly

Just lovely..... thank you BW, more pleeeease!

Hey Headfry, one more post and you'll come a Cropper!