The small, dark brown wrentit is found here in western Oregon — if you can find it.
This bird is elusive and only sings in the open in spring. Even then the mated pair may rarely appear atop a shrub. They live much of their life within a thicket. Wrentits do not wander, and rarely get more than twenty feet above the ground. No tree-topping by these little neighbors.
Even though the name may hint they are related to our various wren species, that is misleading. This bird is a member of the parrotbill family, the only species in America. All the other parrotbills live in Asia. We may assume that the original wrentits came across the Siberian land bridge. Later ice ages pushed the later generations south along the Pacific Slope.
Today wrentits are confined to the lowlands within a hundred miles of the Pacific in Oregon, California and Mexico. As long as the Colombia River does not shrink down to creek size, there will never be a wrentit in Washington State. No way one would fly across all that open water. So now the northernmost place to see or hear wrentits is Fort Stevens State Park.
Their chosen homeland is dense brush, thickets. Some shading trees are tolerated but not dense forest. Some wetness but not cattails or open water. You may find a family, but never a flock of a dozen or more. Research shows a wrentit will never travel more than 1,600 feet from where it is born. So either there are wrentits nesting near your home, or you will have go out and search to find one. A mated pair never leaves its nesting territory. Fires and habitat destruction can be deadly for these birds.
They eat berries and small invertebrates. The adult wrentit is just over 6 inches long, its wingspan about 7 inches. The long tail is often a hint you didn’t just see a sparrow.
The iris is pale in both males and females. They nest in open, woven cup a foot to four feet above the ground, deep in dense shrubbery. Thorny blackberry canes are welcomed by wrentits. They may lay as many as five eggs. Incubation takes about 16 days, then the nestlings fledge in another 15 days. Both parents tend the young. So, before you clear that brush, please find out if this species is living there.
For information about upcoming Salem Audubon programs and activities, see www.salemaudubon.org, or Salem Audubon’s Facebook page.
Harry Fuller is an Oregon birder and natural history author of “Freeway Birding” and the newly-published “Birding Harney County.” He is a member of the Salem Audubon Society. Contact him at [email protected] or atowhee.blog. His “Some Fascinating Things About Birds” column appears regularly in Salem Reporter.
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Harry Fuller is an Oregon birder and natural history author of three books: “Freeway Birding,” "Great Gray Owls of California, Oregon and Washington," and "San Francisco's Natural History--Sand Dunes to Streetcars." He leads birding trips for the Malheur Field Station. He is a member of the Salem Audubon Society, and leads bird trips locally. Harry has just published a new book, BIrding Harney County.
