Wrens | Troglodytidae

Winterkoningen | Chochines

Very small, rounded birds with short rounded wings and a short tail often carried cocked, and a fine slightly decurved bill for teasing insects out of crevices. They move mouse-like through the lowest layer of wood, hedgebank, wall and stream side, slipping into root plates and log piles, and keep to the ground more than to the bush. For so small a body the song is extraordinarily loud: a long hard phrase with a rattle in it, to be heard the year round. The nest is a domed ball with a side entrance, of which the male builds several for the female to choose from; apart from a single species the whole family lives in the Americas.