Eurasian Wrens are very common in forests throughout Germany. They owe their awful name to the fact that the former holarctic “Wren” or “Winter Wren” was recently split into several New World and one Old World form, producing the need to add a geographic reference to the new forms’ respective names. Clearly, the “Eurasian” wren came off worst, with the most boring of names imaginable. Anyway…

Apart from being common, the Wren is a bird of attitude, and a very aggressive attitude that is. Its sten gun alarm rattles echo throughout our forests the moment we dare to enter them, remembering us that we have no good reason whatsoever for being there – ever. The forests clearly are the private and sole property of the Wren, and it shows no hesitation in making that point very clear.
Apparently, no one has ever made it very clear to the Wren that it is but 10 cm in length, Europe’s smallest species after the two Kinglets, at 9 cm each. Or maybe, just maybe,  it shows the defiant attitude of the dachshund against the overwhelming physical shapes surrounding it, an attitude that is disproportionately strong not in spite of but because of its small size. 

Maybe, just maybe, this bad morning before the first cup of coffe feeling is an aura that surrounds the Wren from the moment it peeks out of its egg shell. And maybe, just maybe, you will find the following pictures of Baby Wrens cute. But certainly, very certainly, the Baby Wren won’t.


Like father

… like son

 

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Baby Bird Week is our celebration of the young, the cute, the adorable, the twee. We certainly spend enough time on adult birds here on 10,000 Birds so we figured it would only make sense to fawn over the fuzzy bundles of fluff that grow up to become the objects of our fascination. Whether you seek out waterfowl, songbirds, or seabirds we will have baby birds to match your obsession.

Baby Bird Week will run from 15-21 July, Sunday until Saturday. Make sure to check back every day or even multiple times a day to keep up with all the baby bird goodness!

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Written by Jochen
Jochen Roeder was born in Germany and raised to be a birder. He also spent a number of years abroad, just so he could see more birds. One of his most astounding achievements is the comprehension that Yellow-crowned Night-herons do not exist, as he failed to see any despite birding in North America for more than two years. He currently lives near Heidelberg, one of the most boring places for a birder to live, a fact about which he likes to whinge a lot. When he is not birding or trying to convince his teenage son that patiently scanning some fields for migrants is more fun than staring at a smartphone, he enjoys contemplating the reasoning behind the common names of birds. He first became famous in the bird blog world on Bell Tower Birding.