Larch Creek Birds

What the birds (and frogs) are saying at a creek in western Washington
Plate 9
Pacific Wren
John Gerrard Keulemans, 1881
Bird

Pacific Wren

Troglodytes pacificus
Wrens (Troglodytidae)
Year-round resident. Expected at the creek in every month.
Field marks
A tiny, dark chocolate-brown wren with a stub tail cocked straight up, barred flanks and a faint eyebrow; creeps like a mouse through root tangles and is usually heard long before it is seen, if it is seen.
Male & female
Alike.
Voice
An astonishingly long, fast, tinkling song, eight to ten seconds of trills and runs from a bird that weighs less than two nickels; per ounce, probably the most song in North America. The call is a hard 'chimp-chimp'.
Diet
Insects and spiders from logs, roots and moss.
Habitat
Dark, wet conifer forest with fallen logs and dense understory: the Northwest's signature forest wren.
Nesting
A domed moss ball hidden in roots, a stump or a bank. The male builds several and the female picks one, which is a system; 5–7 eggs.
Size
3–4¾ in long, about a third of an ounce: two nickels, and it sings for ten seconds straight on them.

Split from the Winter Wren in 2010 when the two turned out not to understand each other's songs. Resident at the creek; the singing gets going in earnest in February.

Season how expected it is here, week by week

50%100%JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecheard at the creektoday
Fig. 1. BirdNET's range model for this location: the chance this species is present in each week of the year. Orange ticks mark weeks it has actually been heard at the creek; the dashed line is today.

At the creek 32 calls on 4 days, first Oct 28, last Oct 31

51000:00 — 0 calls001:00 — 0 calls02:00 — 0 calls03:00 — 0 calls304:00 — 0 calls05:00 — 0 calls06:00 — 0 calls607:00 — 2 calls08:00 — 10 calls09:00 — 1 calls910:00 — 2 calls11:00 — 1 calls12:00 — 1 calls1213:00 — 0 calls14:00 — 0 calls15:00 — 0 calls1516:00 — 7 calls17:00 — 7 calls18:00 — 1 calls1819:00 — 0 calls20:00 — 0 calls21:00 — 0 calls2122:00 — 0 calls23:00 — 0 callssunrisesunset
Fig. 2. When it calls: all detections by hour of day (today's sunrise and sunset shown).
714Oct 2 — 0 callsOct 3 — 0 callsOct 3Oct 4 — 0 callsOct 5 — 0 callsOct 6 — 0 callsOct 7 — 0 callsOct 8 — 0 callsOct 9 — 0 callsOct 10 — 0 callsOct 10Oct 11 — 0 callsOct 12 — 0 callsOct 13 — 0 callsOct 14 — 0 callsOct 15 — 0 callsOct 16 — 0 callsOct 17 — 0 callsOct 17Oct 18 — 0 callsOct 19 — 0 callsOct 20 — 0 callsOct 21 — 0 callsOct 22 — 0 callsOct 23 — 0 callsOct 24 — 0 callsOct 24Oct 25 — 0 callsOct 26 — 0 callsOct 27 — 0 callsOct 28 — 2 callsOct 29 — 7 callsOct 30 — 9 callsOct 31 — 14 callsOct 31
Fig. 3. Calls per day over the last 30 days.

Recordings

Clearest recording · Oct 31 4:43 pm · 99% sure
spectrogram
Recent · Oct 31 6:00 pm · 93% sure
spectrogram
Recent · Oct 31 5:59 pm · 90% sure
spectrogram
Recent · Oct 31 4:43 pm · 97% sure
spectrogram

From the encyclopedia

The Pacific wren is a very small North American bird and a member of the mainly New World wren family Troglodytidae. The species was formerly lumped together with either the winter wren of eastern North America alone, or also with the Eurasian wren of Eurasia, then under the merged name of northern wren with the scientific name troglodytes having priority. Furthermore, although these three species were previously classified in the genus Troglodytes, they have been moved to the genus Nannus.
From Wikipedia, "Pacific wren", CC BY-SA 4.0.