The Canyon Wrens 
Wren meets the expectation. Whether the bird plays at hide-and-seek 
through trailing vines, or posts quietly on a rock-knob, or comes clinking 
over the face of a rocky exposure, it is easily seen to be the handsomest 
of North American wrens. The white of the throat, where alone the 
plumage is immaculate, shades on the breast into the rich warm brown 
or auburn of the hinderparts; and everywhere else there is speckling of 
black-and-white or a barring of black. The bird, however attentive, 
cannot resist a peeping spider or an insulting midge, and whatever the 
danger, he manages to divide his time impartially between observation 
and insect-catching. If he is disturbed, as at nesting time, a musical 
clink, or cleeink, bursts from his mandibles, moment by moment, accom¬ 
panied by an emphatic bob or squat. Now and then these clinks are 
grouped hastily into an imitation of the dropping song, but with only 
a trifling change in pitch. 
There is no place forbidden to a Canyon Wren, no rock wall which 
frights him, no tunnel’s mouth, nor intricacy of talus bed. He has no 
special predilection for the picturesque, however, as his name might 
seem to imply. A brush pile or a heap of old tin cans will do as well 
as a miner’s cabin or an old Mission. What a merry soul it is, and his 
life how full of adventure! There is a wondrous variety in the world 
Taken near Santa Barbara 
Photo by the Author 
A TYPICAL NESTING SITE 
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