A tiny brown bird with a loud, extended song. In Japan it breeds in habitats such as woodland beside mountain streams.
It has a small rounded body, a slender bill and a short tail, which it sometimes holds upright.
During breeding, male Eurasian Wrens build several nests in their territories and display them to females. Evans and Burn examined the relationship between nest number and female choice in 1992, then experimentally changed the number of empty nests on territories in 1993. Males with more nests were more likely to be chosen, and the experiment confirmed that nest number influenced female settlement.
Mating success was also higher in territories with denser vegetation, where nests survived better. Tail length initially appeared related to mating success, but it explained no additional variation once nest number was taken into account. Females used each nest with equal probability. Each additional nest increased a male’s chances of being chosen by a similar amount, so the benefit of nest building accumulated one nest at a time.
IUCN Red List (BirdLife International) · Least Concern (LC) · Global
BirdLife International’s 2018 global IUCN assessment listed the Eurasian Wren as Least Concern (LC), with an increasing population trend. The assessment date was 9 August 2018.