May 27, 2007 - Singing Wrens Welcome to the Nature Notebook. From woodland edges and brushy thickets comes a musical torrent, a bubbling that rises in a frantic effort to fit too much song into too little time. Then without warning, the song switches abruptly to a discordant, scolding buzz. The source of all this racket is a small brown bird, a house wren or jenny wren. The Chippewa name for the wren translates into "making big noise for its size" a rather appropriate moniker. Male house wrens are the noisy guys, singing and scolding as they flit here and there defending their territories from actual and perceived intruders. They are also trying to attract a female to one of the several twig nests they have built, some of which are in the mostly unlikely of places. An interested female gets a thorough guided tour of future accommodations complete with a serenade. This is PPL's naturalist, Jon Beam, with the Nature Notebook for WVIA.