Bewick's Wren

The sassy, energetic Bewick’s Wren is a lot of fun when it enters our Aldea yard. It is entertaining to watch it frenetically forage on the ground digging into areas beneath grass clumps for insects.

One moment it can be on the ground and then the next moment it zips up to the top of trees and bursts into song with spring jubilation. Lots of fun to watch. Very animated. I recently photographed one as it was digging under a new grass outcropping capturing its under-tail detailing. I have included that photo below. Beautiful patterning that I had not photographed or seen before. Mooning, eh?

In fact, they are so active they are difficult to photograph. I have many blurred photos of them. I do like their distinctive stance and shape also as shown in the photos below. They have scolded me many times from their perches on a coyote fence or the stucco walls of our Aldea neighborhood.

Bewick’s Wrens are a year-round resident of northern New Mexico and the southwestern U.S., although I don’t remember seeing one in our yard this past winter. But there is one that has been here consistently almost every day this April. 

As a lure, I put up a wren nesting box but so far there have been no takers. Wrens prefer cavities in rock walls or any available cavity that works it seems here in Aldea as there have been a few nests that neighbors have noted in rock walls in past years. 

The Bewick’s Wren was name by Audubon for Thomas Bewick, the English naturalist. A group of wrens has many collective nouns, including a “chime”,“flight”,”flock”, or “herd” of wrens. 

Click on photos to enlarge.