At the moment, the world is mainly white, black and gray.
The birds in my feeder are like that too. Chickadees, rushes, chickadees, nuthatches – as black, white and gray as Whistler’s mother. Every once in a while, there are Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal red / olive to light up the world, or the crimson stain on the back of a fuzzy woodpecker’s head.
But luckily for me, I also had a pair of Carolina wrens – small, round birds of a brilliant cinnamon brown, with tails straight as signal lights. Nothing could be better.
They are not a constant tenant, year after year here – they may not show up for several winters and then come back like a lucky copper penny. But this winter, pennies are spreading across the state.
“They’re everywhere,” said Margaret Robbins, owner of the Wild Birds Unlimited store in Brookfield, where Carolina’s plethora of wren is. “I received a lot of customers with photos or descriptions.”
“We had a record number in our Christmas bird count this year,” said Angela Dimmitt of New Milford. “I think they had a very successful breeding season.”
They are also singers. Even in winter, you can hear them humming ‘kettle, kettle, kettle’ – a flute played over other birds’ fries and squawks.
Ken Elkins, community conservation manager for Audubon Connecticut, said he left on a December morning on River Road in Southbury, compiling his list for the annual Christmas bird count.
“It was deadly silence,” said Elkins. “Then I heard a Carolina wren singing. The sound was actually transmitted. “
“Someone called here with a recording of a cambaxirra they made, asking for an ID,” said Cathy Hagadorn, executive director of the Deer Pond Farm nature center at the Connecticut Audubon Society in Sherman.
The music was unmistakable.
“They are small, but they are powerful,” said Hagadorn.
As the name implies, Carolina wrens are also a species of the south – they are the birds of the state of South Carolina.
But like cardinals, scarlet birds and red-bellied woodpeckers, they spread northward here throughout the 20th century – especially in the second half of that century.
Patrick Comins, executive director of the Connecticut Audubon Society, said that a birdwatcher first spotted a cambaxirra in the state in 1874. The first nesting pair settled in Bridgeport in 1895.
Now, its reach is advancing to Vermont and New Hampshire.
“They were rare here at one point,” said Comins. “Now, they are common.”
Birds can expand their reach more easily if they are generalists, who can adapt to different habitats and foods.
Carolina crinkles like undergrowth, a habitat that is dwindling in Connecticut – or we have mature forests, suburbs or cities.
But Comins said that Carolina Wrens learned to coexist with humans. They nest in tangles of vines and branches in the corners of the suburbs and in urban parks.
They may also be benefiting from winter feeders – gaining weight with protein-rich sebum to cope with cold days.
“I put worms on them and, oh my God, they are in heaven,” said Robbins of Wild Birds Unlimited. “They wait for me in the morning.”
All wrens are brown. Carolina wrens – with her auburn back, white stripes on her eyes and yellow breasts – are the brightest in the group.
They also have a wide variety of vocalizations – variations on the ‘teakettle’ music, along with buzzing and chatter. They communicate in different ways.
“That means they are probably very smart birds,” said Comins.
They also have lively personalities – not aggressive, but direct.
“I love them,” said Hagadorn of Deer Pond Farm.
To encourage Carolina wrens to stick around, Hagadorn said, it’s a good idea to make your yard a little messy. Insects can spend the winter are the uncut remains of a flower garden and Carolina wrens can pass by, looking for food.
“Leave piles of brush.” she said.
It is not clear whether climate change pushed Carolina Carrie north, said Comins. They started to appear here in the late 19th century, he said, so it is more likely to simply expand its range over the decades, with juvenile birds dispersing from the nest and advancing to new places.
Most of the time, this goes from south to north.
“I can only think of two species that moved from the north to the state,” said Comins. “Yellow-bellied sapsuckers and common crows.”
But in the future, warmer weather may push some regular Connecticut goers north, while bringing other species from the south into our state.
“We may be hearing birds singing ‘you’,” said Hagadorn.
Contact Robert Miller at [email protected].