Great Carolina Wren

Facts about Carolina Wren birds. "Scientific name for Great Carolina Wren bird is Thryothorus ludovicianus". This species name means “the reed jumper of Louisiana”. It is sometimes called simply the Carolina Wren.
The Great Carolina Wren birds have short, rounded and convex wings. The first quill is the shortest, while the fourth is the longest. The Great Carolina Wren bird have long tails and their bills are brown on top and blue on bottom. The Great Carolina Wren bird have dark brown upper bodies and a rust or light brown under-side. They have brown eyes with a white stripe above it and their throats are gray and white. Females are lighter in coloring than the males, with white tips on their wing coverts.
The male Great Carolina Wren bird are five and a half inches (13.9 cm) long with a wingspan of seven and a half inches (19 cm). They are the second largest wrens in the United States.
The Great Carolina Wren birds have jerking tail and body movements as they fly, far from graceful but enough to help it hop from perch to perch. They are constantly on the move. The Great Carolina Wren bird tails are erect when in motion or flight but droop when the rest or put out a long song.

The Great Carolina Wren birds’ cries sound like a chirr-up. It is repeated at intervals. Their standard territorial song is a “come to me” or “tea-kettle” sound repeated several times in quick succession.


Habitat of Great Carolina Wren bird

The Great Carolina Wren bird tends to stay close to the ground. They rarely go to the top of trees to issue songs, preferring the lower levels of trees, bushes and near the ground to find food. They eat insects, spiders and other small prey. They will eat flying insects and aquatic ones.
They are common in the American southeast, from Louisiana to the Carolinas. The Great Carolina Wren bird can be found as far north as the Missouri River and as far south as northern Mexico; a small population is found in Yucatan, Mexico but may be a separate species or distinct subspecies, the white-browed wren. They live in fields, swamps and woodlands.

Lifecycle of Great Carolina Wren bird

Great Carolina Wren birds mate for life. They are unusual for wrens in that the male sings to attract the mate, but the female does not.
Carolina wrens build nests in holes in trees, the eaves of buildings and even in fence posts. They have been found nesting in other enclosed spaces like boxes and flower pots.
Males and female Great Carolina Wren bird participate in nest-building. The Great Carolina Wren bird raises two broods, sometimes three in one season. Each clutch of eggs has three to four eggs in it, and they hatch fourteen to sixteen days later. Hatchlings remain in the nest for another two weeks. The fledglings will return to their parents for another two weeks for feeding before being considered independent by the parents. By that time, the parents will have another clutch of eggs if not more hatchlings to feed.

The young fledgling birds resemble the older ones except for having lighter coloring.
Their primary predators are cats, weasels, minxes and others.

Trivia about Great Carolina Wren bird

The Great Carolina Wren bird was selected to be the South Carolina state bird in 1948. Before that, the state bird was the mockingbird. This is in part because the bird resides there year-round.
While the species name of the Carolina Wren means wren from Louisiana, the state bird of Louisiana is the brown pelican.