It also breeds in Western Asia as far east as Syria. The bird's southern limit is northern Spain, southern France, Italy, Sicily and southern Russia. The nominate race breeds in Europe as far north as 67°N in Norway and 64°N in Sweden, Finland and Russia. The Eurasian wren is a Palearctic species. Subspecies Troglodytes troglodytes nipalensis with its very dark plumage in Sikkim, India The wren's song also incorporates repeated trill sounds while the dunnock's does not. Its song may sometimes be confused with that of the dunnock, which has a warble that is shorter and weaker. Despite its generally mouse-like behaviour, the male may sing from an exposed low perch as its whole body quivers from the effort. At any season the song may be heard, though it is most noticeable during spring. The song begins with a few preliminary notes, then runs into a trill, slightly ascending, and ends in full clear notes or another trill. The bird has an enormous voice for its size, ten times louder, weight for weight, than a cockerel. The male has remarkably long and complex vocalizations, with a series of tinkling trills one after the other for seconds on end. The song is a gushing burst of sweet music, clear, shrill and emphatic. When the bird is annoyed or excited, its call runs into an emphatic churr, not unlike clockwork running down. The most common call is a sharp, repeated "tic-tic-tic". Problems playing this file? See media help. The plumage is subject to considerable variation, and where populations have been isolated, the variation has become fixed in one minor form or another. Young birds are less distinctly barred and have mottled underparts. The bill is dark brown and the legs are pale brown, the feet having strong claws and a large hind toe. It is rufous brown above, greyer beneath, and indistinctly barred with darker brown and grey, even on the wings and tail. The adult bird is 9 to 10 cm (3.5 to 3.9 in) in length and has a wingspan of 13–17 cm (5.1–6.7 in). The Eurasian wren is a plump, sturdy bird with rounded wings and a short tail, which is usually held cocked up. The St Kilda wren is greyer above, whiter beneath, with more abundant bars on the back the Shetland wren and Fair Isle wren are darker. zetlandicus, to the Shetland Islands and the third, T. hirtensis, is confined to the island of St Kilda another, T. indigenus, there are three distinct insular subspecies: one, T. Thus in Scotland, in addition to the typical bird T. orii, the Daito wren, became extinct around 1940 – if it was indeed a valid taxon and not merely based on an anomaly. There are 28 recognised subspecies of this taxonomically complex bird. It was estimated that Troglodytes pacificus and Troglodytes troglodytes last shared a common ancestor approximately 4.3 million years ago, long before the glacial cycles of the Pleistocene, thought to have promoted speciation in many avian lineages inhabiting the boreal forest of North America. Some ornithologists place the Eurasian wren, the winter wren and the Pacific wren in a separate genus Nannus that was introduced by the Swedish naturalist Gustaf Johan Billberg in 1828 with the Eurasian wren as the type species. ![]() The Eurasian wren was formerly considered conspecific with two North American species: the winter wren ( Troglodytes hiemalis) and the Pacific wren ( Troglodytes pacificus). ![]() The species is now placed in the genus Troglodytes that was introduced by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot in 1809. In 1555 the German naturalist Conrad Gessner had used the Latin name Passer troglodyte for the Eurasian wren in his Historiae animalium. The specific epithet is from the Ancient Greek trōglodutēs meaning "cave-dweller". The Eurasian wren was described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Motacilla troglodytes. It is also highly polygynous, an unusual mating system for passerines. It is migratory in only the northern parts of its range. The Eurasian wren occurs in Europe and across the Palearctic – including a belt of Asia from northern Iran and Afghanistan across to Japan. It was once lumped with Troglodytes hiemalis of eastern North America and Troglodytes pacificus of western North America as the winter wren. It is russet brown above, paler buff-brown below and has a cream buff supercilium. It has a very short tail which is often held erect, a short neck and a relative long thin bill. ![]() In Anglophone Europe, it is commonly known simply as the wren. The Eurasian wren ( Troglodytes troglodytes) or northern wren is a very small insectivorous bird, and the only member of the wren family Troglodytidae found in Eurasia and Africa ( Maghreb).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |