Wrens | Troglodytidae

Winterkoningen | Chochines | Wrens

Small to medium-sized, mostly brown birds with short, rounded wings, a tail often held cocked and a fine, slightly curved bill for picking insects out of crevices. All but one species of the family live in the Americas, and 50 species in eleven genera occur in this guide, from the Amazonian and Chocó lowlands up to the páramo. Size ranges from the small Southern House Wren, which lives right into gardens and villages, to the large Campylorhynchus wrens, which live in family groups, such as Bicolored Wren in northern Colombia and Fasciated Wren in the dry forests of western Ecuador and Peru. Most species move unseen through the lowest layer of forest, scrub and marsh; the wood wrens (Henicorhina) are typical of the cloud-forest understorey, the Cinnycerthia wrens travel in noisy parties through montane bamboo, and the Cistothorus wrens live in grassland and marsh as high as the páramo. The song is remarkably loud for the size of the bird; in many tropical species male and female sing duets so tightly interlocked that they sound like one bird, and the nightingale wrens (Microcerculus) give long series of slow, pure whistles. The nest is usually a domed ball with a side entrance or is placed in a cavity, and several species also build separate roosting nests.