Winter Wren

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The Winter Wren is a perky little bird. This picture is of rather poor quality, though.

This is one of the tiniest birds in Holland. It's lively, sings beautifully and seems to be totally ignoring people, which means that it doesn't show any fear for people, but it doesn't care about people either. We rarely ever see it on our feeding table, which actually is a shame, because it's a pretty little bird, of which the tail always seems to point upwards. The Dutch name of the bird means King of Winter, as this is one of the first birds to sing and in warm winters it even doesn't stop singing altogether and then can be heard as the only singing bird, hence the name. Funny about the bird's behavior is that the male in spring builds a few nests and then the female bird chooses one of these to put the eggs in. The bird belongs to a separate family and of this family it is the only European representative.

This bird belongs to the family of Wrens (Troglodytidae). It is very common in our garden and can be seen in Holland all year round. The bird is 4" and weighs 9 grams. It lives in bushes, woodlands, gardens and parks mostly. It eats insects. The sexes do not differ from one another. THis birds builds its nest almost everywhere between April and July. It lays five to seven eggs at a time. It takes the eggs 15 days to hatch. After which period the chicks remain inside the nest for another 17 days, which is quite some time for such a very small bird. The bird is also referred to as European Wren or simply Wren.

Name of this bird in various other languages
Dutch	German	French	Polish	Scientific
Winterkoning	Zaunkönig	Troglodyte mignon	Strzyzyk (woleoczko)	Troglodytes troglodytes