#wrentit

Here are some plain looking birds that I am actually rather fond of:

American Bushtit (Psaltriparus minimus), family Aegithalidae, order Passeriformes, found in the Western US and Canada

photograph by Colin Franks 

Wrentit (Chamaea fasciata), family Paradoxornithidae, order Passeriformes, Western US

photographs: Matt Davis and Mike Charest

Clark’s Nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana), him eat a tasty pine nut, family Corvidae, order Passeriformes, northwestern U.S.

photographs by Doug Schurman & TIERFOTOAGENTUR

Oak Titmouse (Baeolophus inornatus), family Paridae, order Passeiformes, CA, USA

photograph by Chris Wolfgram & Paul Fenwick

Juniper Titmouse (Baeolophus ridgwayi), family Paridae, order Passeriformes, Western US

A wrentit (Chamaea fasciata) stops for a drink in California, USA

Belated and somehow on my sideblog instead, how curious! A mystery!

Which means you get a mysterious bird! Wrentits are one of those birds that are unique among American species - their closest relatives are now thought to be the Asian parrotbills (so not wrens, not tits) with no other relatives anywhere in the western hemisphere. Both males and females sing, and song is actually the most reliable way to determine the sex, because both develop the same breeding characteristics as each other which is WILD.

See, during the breeding season, most birds that incubate will develop a brood patch - an area of puffy, fluid-filled featherless belly skin for heat transfer to the eggs. In most songbirds only females do this but males also will for those species where both parents share incubation duties. However, in basically all songbirds, only males develop the cloacal protuberance, a swelling of the cloaca to facilitate sperm transfer. In Wrentits, females also do this. Why? ???? Well we have no idea.

Wrentit (Chamaea fasciata), May 4th 2025

Wrentit (Chamaea fasciata)

Photo: Becky Matsubara

"In the chaparral, the dense low brush that grows along the Pacific seaboard, Wrentits are often heard and seldom seen. Pairs of these long-tailed little birds move about actively in the depths of the thickets, rarely perching in the open or flying across small clearings. They are remarkably sedentary; a bird may spend its entire adult life in an area of just a couple of acres."