Carolina Wren Call

The Carolina wren is possibly my favorite bird. I love their saucy attitude, their fearlessness, their bouncy grounded movements, their warm tweed pattern. Being mostly stuck at home I have paid more attention than usual to the birds’ doings in our yard. This includes fifteen male cardinals on about half an acre, with considerably fewer females. We had several nests last year with twin male fledglings, so we knew this was coming. It includes the first time I can recall having a male great crested flycatcher in the neighborhood, with his dapper khaki and yellow outfit (and bedhead top) and his unmusical, raspy, “freeep, freeep!” which can pierce through our house walls. And it means watching and hearing several pairs of Carolina wrens as they try to make nests in our garage, and jam each other’s mating calls with their raspberry sounds.

Carolina wrens have four or more quite distinct sounds that they make for different situations, but the one that most people would recognize is the male’s mating call. He finds a prominent spot with a good perch in the open and basically turns his entire body into throat so he can holler. The call is often described as “Chewy! chewy! chewy! chewy!” or “Tea-kettle, tea-kettle, tea-kettle, tea!” I find that some individuals sound more like one than the other.

I’ve been picturing what the blasts of sound feel like to me, coming out in rings or spirals of trumpet yellow from the bird. I’ve also been fascinated with sunflowers, which feature in all three of the watercolors I’ve recently completed. This is my painting of the Carolina wren call.