Wrentit

Chamaea fasciata
STANFORD LOCATIONS:

Uncommon, very secretive resident in dense, brushy vegetation. Sparsely distributed on main campus but more common and widespread in scrub near the Dish and around faculty housing.
  
Nest
Location
Nest
Type
Eggs
Mating System
Dev.
Parental Care
Primary &
2ndary Diet
Foraging
Strategy
MF
I: 15-16 DAYS
ALTRICIAL
1 foot - 15 feet
MF
4
(3-5)
MONOG
F: 15-16 DAYS
MF
  
BARK GLEAN
BREEDING: Chaparral, scrub, well planted suburban areas. 2? broods.
DISPLAYS: ?
NEST: Base of cobwebs supporting coarse bark, with deep cup of fine bark, lined with fine fibers, hair. Outside often decorated with lichen.
EGGS: Pale greenish-blue, unmarked. 0.7" (18 mm).
DIET: Includes spiders; adults feed heavily on fruit, esp when insects scarce in fall and winter. Young fed 100% insects.
CONSERVATION: Winter resident. Uncommon cowbird host.
NOTES: "Bouncing ping pong ball" song is heard much more often than bird is seen; secretive in thick undergrowth. Extremely sedentary: mate for life and remain in 1 -- 2.5 --acre area. Young still beg from adults at 30-35 days. Tends to avoid singing when Bewick's Wrens sing (so as to avoid acoustic interference); usu follows wren by few minutes. Recent taxonomic work indicates neither a wren nor a tit (as chickadees are called in England), but a babbler (Timaliidae), an otherwise Old World family of insectivores.
ESSAYS: Birds, DNA and Evolutionary Convergence; DNA and Classification; Bathing and Dusting.
REFERENCES: Fleischer et al., 1985; Sibley and Ahlquist, 1984b.

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Except for Stanford Locations, the material in this species treatment is taken, with permission, from The Birder's Handbook (Paul Ehrlich, David Dobkin, & Darryl Wheye, Simon & Schuster, NY. 1988).