The marsh wren ( Cistothorus palustris) is a small songbird of the wren family. It was formerly called the long-billed marsh wren to distinguish it from the sedge wren, then known as the short-billed marsh wren.
Taxonomy
The marsh wren was described by the Scottish-American ornithologist Alexander Wilson in 1810 and given the
binomial name Certhia palustris.
The current
genus Cistothorus was introduced by the German ornithologist
Jean Cabanis in 1850.
There are 15 recognised
subspecies.
Etymology: from Greek 'κιστος' ( cistos, "a shrub") and 'θουρος' ( thouros, "leaping, or running through") and Latin 'palustris' ("marshy").
Description
Adults have brown upperparts with a light brown belly and flanks and a white throat and breast. The back is black with white stripes. They have a dark cap with a white line over the eyes and a short thin bill.
The male's song is a loud gurgle used to declare ownership of territory; western males have a more varied repertoire.
This little bird is native to Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Their breeding habitat is with tall vegetation such as across North America. In the western United States, some birds are permanent residents. Other birds Bird migration to marshes and salt marshes in the southern United States and
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Measurements:
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Length:
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Weight:
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Wingspan:
Foraging and diet
These birds forage actively in vegetation close to the water, occasionally flying up to catch
in flight. They mainly eat insects, also
and
.
In California, 53 Western Marsh Wren stomachs were examined which showed that the birds consume bugs (29%), caterpillars and chrysalids (17%), beetles (16%), ants and wasps (8%), spiders (5%), carabids and coccinellids (2%), with various other flies, grasshoppers, dragonflies and unidentifiable insect remains making up over 11 percent. Ants and wasps were observed to be mostly eaten in the fall.
Nesting
The
Bird nest is an oval structure attached to marsh vegetation, entered from the side. The male builds many unused nests in his territory. A hypothesis of the possible reason to why males build multiple "dummy" nests in their territory is that they are courting areas and that the females construct the "breeding nest" in which she lays her eggs.
[Metz, Karen J. "The Enigma of Multiple Nest Building by Male Marsh Wrens." Jan. 1991, pp. 170–173.] He may puncture the eggs and fatally peck the nestlings of other birds nesting nearby, including his own species (even his own offspring) and red-winged blackbirds, yellow-headed blackbirds, and
.
The clutch is normally four to six
Bird egg, though the number can range from three to 10.
The eggs are usually 0.6-0.7 inches in length and 0.4-0.6 inches in width.
Incubation is performed only by females, and only females develop a brood patch.
Marsh wren young can get infected by pathogenic larvae.
[Warren, Yvonne. "Protocalliphora Braueri (Diptera: Calliphoridae) Induced Pathogenesis in a Brood of Marsh Wren ( Cistothorus Palustris) Young". Journal of Wildlife Diseases, 17 Mar. 1993, .] The Blowfly larvae infect the young by subdermal myiasis-induced lesions and subsequent sepsis.
The larvae form a wound in the young by rasping and expanding a hole in their skin to create blood flow and feed on the blood of the hosts' body.
Conservation
The species is still common with an estimated global breeding population of 9.4 million.
However, its numbers have declined with the loss of suitable wetland habitat and wholesale draining of marshes will lead to
local extinction. Still, the
species is widespread enough not to qualify as threatened according to the
IUCN.
==Gallery==
Citations
General sources
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Henninger, W. F. (1906): "A preliminary list of the birds of Seneca County, Ohio". Wilson Bulletin 18(2): 47–60. DjVu full text PDF full text
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Warren, Yvonne. " Protocalliphora Braueri (Diptera: Calliphoridae) Induced Pathogenesis in a Brood of Marsh Wren (Cistothorus Palustris) Young". Journal of Wildlife Diseases, 17 Mar. 1993. .
Further reading
External links
