Listen for the song of the wren

DURING the past few weeks on the Isle of Mull, I’ve spent quite a bit of time at higher altitudes monitoring the upland ecology at this hostile time of the year, writes Ewan Miles of Nature Scotland.

Only the hardiest of species survive in these conditions and you can go for an hour without seeing any sign of bird life.

Winter mode is starting to set in, with increased snow cover in the mountainous setting and a chilly Atlantic air-stream powering in off the sea.

Most of the small birds which attempted to breed on these moors in the summer have left for more hospitable conditions.

The wheatears head for Africa and some Scottish meadow pipits could follow them.

But there is one little bird I am seeing withstand the harshest winter environments in Scotland – the wren.

Their Latin name is troglodytes troglodytes (cave dweller), as they manage to find suitable cover in the bracken, heather, rocky crags, cliff crevices and scree slopes.

Wrens are among Scotland’s most numerous birds, with a predicted 1.5 million pairs.

Weighing the same as a pound coin, they cover a range of other habitats including woodland, farmland and offshore Scottish islands, which support five sub-species.

The iconic Christmas robin is famous for singing all year round, throughout the winter months, but they aren’t solo and are joined by the wrens’ explosive singing voice with a sound to size ratio 10 times louder than a jumbo jet. Surely it is one of the most impressive Christmas songs of all time.

Listen out for them around your home this Christmas, protecting their winter territories, with those powerful cascading songs.

Another spectacle to look out for is a communal roost of wrens at dusk. They huddle together to keep warm and in recent years an astonishing 62 were counted going into a single nest box.