Carolina wrens are small birds though they larger than most wrens. They weigh about 20 g and are 12 to 14 cm long. Carolina wrens have a rusty-brown back and a lighter cinnamon-colored underside. Their throat and chin are white, and their wings and tail are brown with very fine black stripes. Carolina wrens also have a broad white stripe above each eye, which makes them easy to identify from other wrens.
Carolina wrens have long, thin bills that curve downward. The top part of the bill called the upper mandible is dark, and the bottom part of the bill called the lower mandible is light-yellow.
Carolina wrens have pink legs and long tails. Male and female Carolina wrens are very similar. However, males are slightly heavier and often have longer bills, wings and tails. Young Carolina wrens look like adults, but are usually lighter colored. Carolina wrens are year-round residents of the southeastern United States. They are found from the Atlantic seashore to as far west as Texas, Nebraska, Kansas and eastern Oklahoma.
This species is also found in the northeast corner of Mexico and the Yucatan Peninsula, as well in a few spots in Central America. Cornell Lab of Ornithology, ; Haggerty and Morton, Carolina wrens can live in many different types of habitats. They prefer wooded areas that are moist rather than dry. They also need dense shrubs or brush for hiding and feeding. Some of the habitats where you might find Carolina wrens include wooded areas along streams and swamps, in thickets and shrubbery, in piles of logs or decaying wood, farmyards, forests, suburban gardens, live oak and palmetto hummocks, isolated clumps of trees in prairies, and old sheds.
Carolina wrens are monogamous. Males and females form breeding pairs that remain together for many years. Male Carolina wrens try to attract a mate by performing courtship displays for her. They may hop around the female in a circle while puffing out their feathers and fanning their tail.
They may also bring food to a female to try to attract her. This is called courtship feeding. Carolina wrens breed between March and October. The male and female work together to build a nest. The nest is built in the mornings, and takes up to a week to build. Carolina wrens will build their nests in a wide variety of sites. Primarily ground foragers, they use their curved bills to lift up leaf litter and snatch prey.
Their boisterous song rings out at any time of the day. Perhaps driven by curiosity, they seem attracted to human activity. Whether we are working in the garden, tending the honeybees, or walking the dogs, the wrens will come for a closer look as long as we pretend not to notice them, but give these shy birds so much as a glance, and they dive into the nearest cover.
His fearlessness in erupting into song from an exposed, elevated perch, combined with his unmistakable tea-kettle, tea-kettle, tea-kettle song, makes him easy to spot and identify.
With a repertoire of 30 or so distinct songs, some appropriated from other species, males sing at different times of the year to attract a mate, strengthen the pair bond, and warn trespassers to stay out of their territory. By the time the warblers, Red-winged Blackbirds, and Ruby-throated Hummingbirds return from their wintering grounds, the resident wrens are already choosing a nest site and building a nest.
In the wild, Carolina Wrens nest in natural cavities like old woodpecker holes, the roots of upturned trees, or rotted tree stumps. But many have adopted a mi casa es su casa policy when it comes to nesting, choosing to build their nests close to human activity. Favorite places might be porch railings or windowsills, under shed overhangs, or in hanging planters, flowerpots, mailboxes, and the pockets of hanging coats. About the only predators that bother the wrens that nest around our house are black rat snakes.
Although wrens are aggressive nest defenders, their loud squawking and diving at a snake that crawled onto the porch and was threatening their five nestlings did not deter the reptile from its mission. Snakes are beneficial because they eat rats and mice, but we relocate the ones that turn up on the porch or in the chicken coop they eat the eggs.
This one got a free ride into the woods behind our house. This spring, the wrens started a nest in a inch length of PVC pipe that my husband had attached to the electric fence around our bee yard to hold a pollen substitute until natural pollen became available.
Ignoring the bees, the pair began stuffing leaves, moss, and small stems into the pipe, all gathered from right around the nest site. A little later, trouble showed up in the form of a male House Wren, a notorious nest destroyer. In a matter of minutes, the contents of the wren nest lay strewn on the ground. A second attempt by the pair met the same fate.
However, the third time the House Wren showed up, the male Carolina stood his ground, and there was a skirmish. As if suddenly possessed, he repeatedly dove at and pursued his rival, issuing scat notes, until the interloper gave up on its mission and flew off. With that matter taken care of, the pair finished the nest, to which the female added a lining of dried grass, leaf skeletons, and chicken feathers.
Carolina wrens are diurnal and non-migratory. Breeding pairs defend a territory year-round, using songs and calls to advertise their occupancy. Carolina wrens are essentially terrestrial. They spend the majority of their time hopping, sometimes at surprisingly high speeds, along the ground. While they are capable of short and erratic flight, they do not usually fly far. They will, however, use their wings to assist in leaps over tree stumps and debris piles.
In addition, Carolina wrens are capable of hitching themselves up trees for nest building or feeding. Carolina wrens can be found preening in a wide variety of settings, including open tree branches.
They utilize their bills and wings to preen, and have been observed dust-bathing. Preening is often accompanied by sun-bathing. Haggerty and Morton, ; Hill Collins, Jr. One study in Alabama estimated the average home range of Carolina wrens to be 0. Carolina wrens communicate using physical displays and vocalizations.
Examples of physical displays employed by Carolina wrens include courtship displays described in "Mating Systems" and agonistic displays that involve holding the body horizontal with the wings held out, the tail fanned and the head and bill pointed at the intruder.
Physical displays are often accompanied by vocalizations. The song of Carolina wrens is loud and high pitched. It consists of varied sounds including: trills, clacks, chatters mostly used by females and rattles.
Songs normally contain 3 to 5 identical syllables, each containing 2 to 12 notes. The frequency has an average range of 1. While females produce the basic sounds, only male Carolina wrens produce songs. The sounds and songs of this species can be used in a number of situations. A few of these instances include: to threaten a predator or another wren, in interspecific mobbing, during territorial defense, to indicate mood, for appeasement between mates, as a "distress" call, to differentiate rivals by sex, etc.
Carolina wrens sing at all times of the year and all times of the day, but they are heard most frequently during late winter and early spring. Carolina wrens are ground-foraging insectivores. They eat a large variety of insects and spiders opportunistically, without showing much preference.
Carolina wrens search for food by using their bills to move brush and vegetation, to search under brush piles, in masses of logs and decaying timber, under upturned roots, under tree bark, and around the banks of swamps. As ground feeders, Carolina wrens are vulnerable to harsh winters. During long winters, this species is often forced to retreat to man-made feeding stations and brush piles.
Though they primarily feed on the ground, Carolina wrens may also be seen climbing tree trunks in a manner similar to creepers , prying under bark and in crevices. Millipedes, sowbugs, snails, and cotton-boll weevils made up a small percentage of stomach contents. In a few rare instances, lizard , frog and snake remains were also found.
Predation of adult carolina wrens has not been documented. However, birds such as blue jays , Cooper's hawks and sharp-shinned hawks are likely predators. Carolina wren eggs and nestlings are vulnerable to predation by raccoons , black rat snakes , gray squirrels , mink , gray foxes and eastern chipmunks. When approached by a predator, Carolina wrens may call in alarm or chase after the predator, sometimes pecking at it.
Carolina wrens affect the populations of the insects and spiders they eat, and provide valuable food for their predators. They compete with other cavity-nesting species for nest sites.
They also provide habitat for various parasites, including mites, lice, ticks, and blowfly larvae. We do not know of any way in which Carolina wrens affect humans. Sometimes catches and eats small lizards or tree frogs. Also eats berries and small fruits, especially in winter, and some seeds.
May mate for life. Pairs remain together all year, defending permanent territories; male and female often sing in duet. Nest site is in any kind of cavity, including natural hollows in trees or stumps, old woodpecker holes, crevices among upturned roots of fallen trees, sometimes in middle of brushpile; also in nest boxes, crevices in buildings, on shelf in garage, many other artificial sites.
Usually less than 10' above the ground. Nest is bulky mass of twigs, leaves, weeds, with lining of softer material such as moss, grass, animal hair, feathers. A piece of snakeskin is frequently added. Often a domed nest, with entrance on side. Both sexes help build, female adds most of lining.
Learn more about these drawings. Choose a temperature scenario below to see which threats will affect this species as warming increases. The same climate change-driven threats that put birds at risk will affect other wildlife and people, too. Wren or sparrow? Robin or grosbeak? By restoring the country's indigo snake population, scientists hope to bring balance to ecosystems—potentially benefiting songbirds.
A biologist traced mercury from a company spill to contamination in songbirds, and devised a new way to hold polluters financially accountable. Latin: Thryomanes bewickii.
0コメント