Subject: Re: Wren, but what kind?
Date: Nov 1 00:46:10 1997
From: Michael Price - mprice at mindlink.bc.ca


Hi Tweets,

Ingrid Lae writes:

>Last Monday, while walking the Stanley Park Seawall, in Vancouver, B.C. I
>spied a "wrennish" looking bird, hopping about on the beached logs, right
>next to the seawall. I only had one field guide with me, but the bird looked
>closest to the House Wren. I'm not sure if a House Wren is likely to be here
>at this time though. When I got home and checked out all of my guides, I
>found that they all showed the House Wren as a "summer" resident only. I
>don't know how long "summer" residents might hang around in Vancouver.

Thugh much commoner in the E Vancouver Island and Gulf Islands rainshadow,
the Okanagan Valley and south Cariboo, SE BC, and the Peace River District,
House Wren is a rarity in Vancouver BC at any time, Ingrid. There seems to a
suggestion of north- and southbound migration windows here (northbound late
Apr-early May, southbound Sept-Oct) but with far too few records to be
definite. It's nested in Vancouver once or twice and may have been more
common than at present. There was one instance almost ten years ago of an
overwintering bird seen and confirmed in Vancouver BC by quite a few people
that for some undiscernible reason was rejected with prejudice by the then
CBC compiler and general record collector. Since the local organisation
never held him to account for these arbitrary decisions, the record never
took its rightful place and House Wren could then have been considered
accidental in winter in the Greater Vancouver (BC) Checklist Area.

Campbell gives April-May and August-September as the main migration windows
with the northern population of the Peace River District birds leaving
earlier and southern BC stragglers into November.

>This little guy/gal had
>an eyestripe, but not as distinct as a Bewick's Wren looks to have.

Well, the supercilium of any individual I've ever seen of the western race
(parkmanii) has usually been quite obscure and more noticeable as a short,
paler greyish streak behind the eye rather than a full-blown eyestripe.
Winter Wren is likely to be in pretty fresh plumage right now, and it *does*
have a distinct buff-brown eyestripe fore-and-aft of the eye. If you've
eliminated Bewick's Wren from consideration, the only other small wrens with
distinct (by using that adjective I may be putting a word into your mouth)
eyestripes are Marsh Wren and Sedge Wren. Since you don't mention the
conspicuous black and white back streaking and very pale throat, and since
you've said the supercilium was not as bright as a Bewick's Wren--which is
as contrasting as a Marsh Wren's if not slightly less so--I'll assume (heh!)
that Marsh Wren bows out of consideration. Well, lord knows I don't know
much about Sedge Wrens, having seen and heard but one singing male, but it
likewise has fine black and white streaking on its back.

>The tail
>was definately not the little stub of a Winter Wren but the colouring was
>similar.

I think that would suggest a non-House Wren ID; the western birds are pretty
drab greyish-brown, unlike the richer buff-brown underparts and warm, almost
chestnut brown upperparts and tail of Winter Wren. A post-juvenile House
Wren may be warmer browner than the adults, though.

>I watched the bird for about 5 minutes, but it was very active. Just as I
>would get it in the binos, it would jump under a log or up onto a rock or
>behind a rock......

Based on experience, the two darkish-brown passerine species most likely to
be found in along sandy/rocky beaches or rock jetties doing what you
describe are Song Sparrow and Winter Wren. Though a bird in migration can
appear in any habitat it chooses, in all the years of trudging the local
beaches, I've *never* seen a Marsh Wren out of appropriate cattail habitat
in summer, and the only ones I've seen in any other habitat were in late
Autumn and winter in sedge and long grass in the upper salt marsh along the
Boundary Bay foreshore and some flooded long-grass rough pasture fields near
the B Bay Airport. Same with House Wren: while anything's possible, never
heard of one anywhere but in urban plantings or scrubby rough-pasture
fields, though to be fair, one was in the long beach-grass fields abutting
the Roberts Bank Jetty but a good couple of hundred meters inland from the
start of the beach.

The only other wren that typically shows up--if it's going to at all--on a
rocky beach in fall or winter is a rarity anywhere on the coast: Rock Wren.
It's chunky and bigger than the small wrens, cold grey-brown upperparts
finely-spotted white, the sort of tail you describe, and grey-white below
streaked very finely grey. Its black or very dark grey legs are usually a
conspicuous mark, as is its habit of bobbing in place like a dipper. The
description doesn't come near supporting this possibility.

>So, to make a long story short, I think I saw a House Wren, but after
>reading my guides, I have doubts about whether one would still be around at
>this time of year. What do you think?

I think Winter Wren, not House Wren, nor Marsh, Sedge or Rock Wrens, based
on the location, behavior, and some of your plumage description details.
There's lots in the area from further north and the Interior, and I imagine
some are still arriving and/or moving through. The location suggests a
migrant not yet on winter territory; the Stanley Park wrens would not likely
leave their forest habitat, though that's just a guess--maybe they do flip
over to the beach for salt or a change of bug menu, I don't know.

>Thanks in advance for your always welcome advice.

Thanks for the ID problem!

Michael Price We aren't flying...we're falling with style!
Vancouver BC Canada -Buzz Lightyear, Toy Story
mprice at mindlink.net