Canyon Wren

This is the familiar form that sometimes invades even the larger towns of states within its ranges. Florence Merriam Bailey's description is too perfect for abbreviation.

"Sometimes, as at Austin, Texas, CANYON WRENS will stray into cities and sing from the chimney tops with the Mocking Birds, and when they do, what cool, grateful canyon memories they awaken in the midst of the town! When heard afterwards on their native canyon cliff it seems impossible that they could ever sing in a city, their song is attuned to the wild mountain fastnesses.

The bit of a Wren may be on a ledge so high above your head that you pick him out among the rocks only by the round white spot which is his throat and which shows as his head is thrown back to sing, yet his voice is so powerful that the canyon fairly rings with his song! What joyous notes! They sound as if his happiness were so great that he needs must proclaim it. His song comes tripping down the scale growing so fast it seems as if the songster could only stop by giving his odd little flourish back up the scale again at the end.

The ordinary song has seven descending notes, often, as if out of pure exuberance of happiness, the Wren begins with a run of grace notes, ending with the same little flourish. The rare character of the song is its rhapsody and the rich vibrant quality which has suggested the name of bugler for him — and a glorious little bugler he surely is."