Wrens can be hard to be sure about. I know an expert could just clock ’em in a heartbeat. I’m not so good with LBBs. There’s this one type of wren I’ve only encountered in marshy environments and assumed was a marsh wren, but upon looking at wren photos tonight, it looks much more like the pacific wren. Who’s who?
Easier is the wren I see the most often. Bewick’s wren is super common in the Puget Sound Trough and has strong enough markings to distinguish from whoever else might be on this side of the mountains. I first got a good look at them in my first Federal Way apartment, some better looks at another apartment in that city, and at last down here in Auburn. They are all the hell over my neighborhood, chirping up a storm at the appropriate times of year.
Bewick’s wren is a little brown bird with a pale chin and belly, and a strong light eyebrow streak. Beady black eyes like Hello Kitty, of course. Thin stripes on wings and tail, orb-like proportions tho not as strongly as on bushtits. Wrens of all types, to my understanding, are most notable for carrying their tails in the air. Gotta show they ass, in the parlance of our times. They love hanging out in bushes, especially along the tops of taller ones, six to ten feet or so.
Ren is a name that shows up in japanese cartoons from time to time. The one I remember offhand is a little girl that got resurrected by a magic sword in Inuyasha. There’s Ren Höek of course, a “problematic fave” of mine from sex creep John Kricfalusi’s classic kid’s show.
It can also be short for Lorenzo, apparently? There was a guy in NWA named Ren, nicknamed “The Villain.” Ice Cube called him Lorenzo in that famous old ditty Fuck tha Police, we can assume that to be his birth name. Do rappers have dead names? I’ll call him Ren or The Villain if he wants me to. Gotta stay true to the principles.
Wonderfully, the German word for wren translates to “Fence King.” Smol but regal.
What other qualities can we infer from this bird’s presence in prose and poetry? They’re sneaky as fuck when it comes to crime, gonna smoke ’em now and not next time. Make you think they’re gon kick your ass, but drop your gat, and wren’s gonna blast.
Shit like that.
–
At our last house we had wrens nesting in the garden, four different place that they rotated though over the years. One of them was in a little cavity in the stone of next door’s off-shot kitchen wall, immediately opposite our sink. We’d get to see the little guys build the nest, then take turns sitting the eggs, then get run ragged by the noisy little ones, and eventually see them fledge or sometimes not. The also had a site inside our side passage on the enormous wood lintel holding up the stone wall, so we’d see them popping in and out while we were doing the washing up too. They one in a wild type fuchsia down the garden and another somewhere I don’t now recall, but neither visible from the house, well not anywhere near as close. We do get wrens here, but I’ve no idea where they nest. And in the UK I think there’s just the one kind of wren.
Once were dinosaurs.
jazzlet – no idea why so many wrens in a small area here, maybe something to do with that small area sitting on a large continent.
morales – archosaurs rule