ML510840711
Contributor
Date
Location
- Age
- Not specified
- Sex
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- Playback
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Media notes
Winter Wren, Arroyo Burro Creek, CA - 4 Dec 2022
Observation details
Found the Winter Wren not long after we arrived at the creek. The recent rains had the creek flowing and the area at the bridge was noisy. We walked down near the creekbed slightly downstream of the bridge and heard the Winter Wren calling from the other side of the creek a few minutes later. It flew over to the leaf litter and understory on our side of the creek where we had extensive looks at it. If we stood there quietly, it foraged a few times within feet of us. It was a small dark brown wren with a very short, stubby tail that it often held straight up. The top of the head, back, and tail were dark brown, which was offset by a paler brown throat, face, and supercilium. The dark brown tail and wings had darker barring, and the flanks and undertail were barred as well. The back was uniformly dark brown with a few whitish spots on the shoulders. The folded wings showed alternating dark and buffy bars on the primaries. The legs were pale and the bill was dark but slightly paler along the inner edges of the bill. While it is near impossible to distinguish between Winter and Pacific Wrens solely on plumage, this bird was much lighter on the face and throat with a more distinct and longer supercilium than expected for a Pacific Wren. We also heard and recorded “chimpy” calls that are lower on a sprectrogram than expected for Pacific Wren.
Technical information
- Recorder
- Microphone
- Accessories
- Original file size
- 4.8 MB