
Photo: (c) William Stephens, some rights reserved (CC BY) · CC BY 4.0
Troglodytes troglodytes
Diet
Insects and other invertebrates
Range
Eurasia and Africa (Maghreb); migratory in the north and north-east, sedentary in the west and south
Clutch size
Five or six eggs (range 3–11), laid from April
Size
9–10cm; wingspan 13–17cm
Weight
About 10g
The Eurasian wren is a very small insectivorous bird, 9–10 cm long with a wingspan of 13–17 cm and weighing about 10 g, and the only member of the wren family found in the Old World, in Eurasia and Africa (Maghreb). It is a plump, sturdy bird with rounded wings and a very short tail, usually held cocked up, a short neck and a relatively long thin bill; it is russet brown above, paler buff-brown below, overall finely barred darker, with a cream-buff eyebrow. Young birds are less distinctly barred and have mottled underparts (Wikipedia, general species account).
It is migratory in the northern, particularly north-eastern, parts of its range and sedentary in the west and south, and is highly polygynous, an unusual mating system for passerines. The commonest call is a sharp, repeated tic-tic-tic, like a robin's but faster. A clutch of five or six eggs (range three to eleven) is laid from April (Wikipedia, general species account).