The Willow Wren, or Willow Warbler, arrives in this country early in April, and takes its departure again in September, although individuals linger with us sometimes throughout the winter in the southern parts of England.
In colour it is olive-green on its upper parts, with dullish-slate brown wings and tail; chin, throat, and breast whitish-yellow, and rest of under parts greyish-white. The pale yellow line over the eye is narrower than that worn by the Wood Wren.
This species is more numerous than either the Chiffchaff or the Wood Wren, and is generally distributed over the British Islands whenever trees or bushes grow in sufficient numbers for its requirements.
WILLOW WREN’S NEST
AND EGGS.
Its nest is generally situated on the ground amongst coarse grass and weeds entwining themselves round the slender twigs of small bushes in woods, plantations, orchards, hedge-banks, and by small alder-fringed streams. I have, however, sometimes seen it in a hole in a dry stone wall at a considerable height from the ground and on one occasion found a nest amongst some ivy growing against a stable wall in the Highlands at an elevation of something like six feet from a much-used garden path. The specimen figured in our illustration was situated in the mouth of a rabbit burrow in Aberdeenshire.
YOUNG WILLOW WRENS.
The structure is dome-shaped with a hole in front, and is composed of dead grass, moss, and occasionally a few dead leaves and fern fronds lined internally with hair and a liberal number of feathers. On one occasion I examined the lining of a Willow Wren’s nest and found that it contained feathers from seven different species of birds, and some of them had been collected by the builder at a considerable distance.