Cave Dweller

They're fledged! One of our local wren pairs has clearly been successful with at least one brood this summer, as a frazzled adult and five youngsters spent a fair bit of time in our garden this past Sunday. The fledglings, already quite good fliers, were bouncing through the brush pile stacked in the fire pit, rummaging among the thistles which are starting to die back in the wilder part of the garden, and flitting through the lower branches of some of the bigger shrubs. And the fledglings' high-pitched begging calls were both piercing and continual! Wrens (known formally as Eurasian Wrens or Troglodytes troglodytes) are common and widespread in the British Isles, found in virtually every habitat. That said, the Old World is surprisingly depauperate in the wren department. For comparison, there have been 32 species of wren recorded in Mexico, including 11 endemics found only in that country; there is one species of wren in all of Europe and Asia!