Winter wren

Winter wrens are tiny visitors to our part of the planet, and they're always among the last migrants to settle in here. The birds spend the breeding season in the northern boreal forests where they're rarely seen but often heard: this is a mite with a big, big voice. Ornithologist Arthur Cleveland Bent described the song as "wonderful, charming, marvelous, startling, and entrancing," and that was just a warm-up. The winter wren, Bent noted, gave out a "gushing melody, which seems at once expressive of the wildest joy and the tenderest sadness." That's a song I would like to hear, but, alas, when they arrive in our neck of the woods, they're quiet, save for a few twitters and a rustling they make as they scurry through the underbrush in search of small seeds and insects. A good photograph of Ka-wa-miti-go-shi-que-na-go-mooch—the bird's name to the Ojibway and their way to honor its long song—requires great patience and luck. I didn't have a lot of either today, so all I came away with was an image suitable for ID purposes, not for framing.