The marsh wren (''Cistothorus palustris'') is a small

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...

songbird A songbird is a bird belonging to the suborder Passeri of the perching birds (Passeriformes). Another name that is sometimes seen as the scientific or vernacular name is Oscines, from Latin ''oscen'', "songbird". The Passeriformes contains 5000 ...

of the

wren Wrens are a family of brown passerine birds in the predominantly New World family Troglodytidae. The family includes 88 species divided into 19 genera. Only the Eurasian wren occurs in the Old World, where, in Anglophone regions, it is commonl ...

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

. It is sometimes called the long-billed marsh wren to distinguish it from the

sedge wren The sedge wren (''Cistothorus stellaris'') is a small and secretive passerine bird in the family Troglodytidae. It is widely distributed in North America. It is often found in wet grasslands and meadows where it nests in the tall grasses and se ...

, also 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 In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bo ...

''Certhia palustris''. The current

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

'' Cistothorus'' was introduced by the German ornithologist

Jean Cabanis Jean Louis Cabanis (8 March 1816 – 20 February 1906) was a German ornithologist. Cabanis was born in Berlin to an old Huguenot family who had moved from France. Little is known of his early life. He studied at the University of Berlin from 1 ...

in 1850. There are 15 recognised

subspecies In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics ( morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all specie ...

. 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

marsh A marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous rather than woody plant species.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p Marshes can often be found ...

es with tall vegetation such as

cattail ''Typha'' is a genus of about 30 species of monocotyledonous flowering plants in the family Typhaceae. These plants have a variety of common names, in British English as bulrush or reedmace, in American English as reed, cattail, or punks, in ...

s across

. In the western United States, some birds are permanent residents. Other birds migrate to marshes and salt marshes in the southern United States and

Mexico Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...

. their non-breeding range is in the southern United States going into Mexico and their breeding range is in the northeastern United States going into Canada. Measurements: * Length: * Weight: * Wingspan:

Foraging and diet

These birds forage actively in vegetation close to the water, occasionally flying up to catch

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three pa ...

s in flight. They mainly eat insects, also

spider Spiders (order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species ...

s and

snail A snail is, in loose terms, a shelled gastropod. The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name ''snail'' is also used for most of the members of the molluscan class ...

s. 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

nest A nest is a structure built for certain animals to hold eggs or young. Although nests are most closely associated with birds, members of all classes of vertebrates and some invertebrates construct nests. They may be composed of organic materi ...

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. 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 blackbird The yellow-headed blackbird (''Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus'') is a medium-sized blackbird with a yellow head. It is the only member of the genus ''Xanthocephalus''. Description Measurements: * Length: 8.3-10.2 in (21-26 cm) * Weight: ...

s, and

least bittern The least bittern (''Ixobrychus exilis'') is a small heron, the smallest member of the family Ardeidae found in the Americas. Taxonomy The least bittern was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his r ...

s. The

clutch A clutch is a mechanical device that engages and disengages power transmission, especially from a drive shaft to a driven shaft. In the simplest application, clutches connect and disconnect two rotating shafts (drive shafts or line shafts). ...

is normally four to six eggs, 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 Local extinction, also known as extirpation, refers to a species (or other taxon) of plant or animal that ceases to exist in a chosen geographic area of study, though it still exists elsewhere. Local extinctions are contrasted with global extinct ...

. Still, the

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriat ...

is widespread enough not to qualify as threatened according to the

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

Gallery

File:MarshWrenTuleLake.jpg, Marsh wren at Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge, California File:Cistothorus palustris Iona.jpg, In Iona, British Columbia, Canada File:100 Marsh Wren cropped.jpg, Nest, illustration File:Museum of Science, Boston, MA - IMG 3236.JPG, Eggs

References

Citations

General sources

* Henninger, W. F. (1906): "A preliminary list of the birds of Seneca County, Ohio". '' Wilson Bull.'' 18(2): 47–60
DjVu full textPDF full text
* Warren, Yvonne. "''Protocalliphora Braueri'' (Diptera: Calliphoridae) Induced Pathogenesis in a Brood of Marsh Wren (Cistothorus Palustris) Young". ''Journal of Wildlife Diseases'', 17 Mar. 1993. .

External links

��USGS Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter * * * {{Taxonbar, from=Q1379530 marsh wren Birds of North America marsh wren Taxa named by Alexander Wilson (ornithologist)