When you’re unsure of the implications of what’s going on in your woods, it almost always pays to check with Thoreau.

I’ve been hearing wrens, but not seeing them. In Maine a bunch of wren species might be spotted now, according to Audubon and other birding sites, including house wrens, Carolina wrens, marsh wrens and sedge wrens. My birdsong app, which is one of the few truly salubrious inventions of the 21st century, has been telling me that what I’m hearing among the conifers just out the back door, though, are winter wrens.

Their name belies their song. The melody is so distinct that if you knew a little more music theory than I do, you could score it. Mozart marked down the notes of his starling’s song, to whom he either taught the theme of his Piano Concerto No. 17 in G, or from whom he got it. Anyway, these winter wrens have similarly amazed my ear.

It turns out winter wrens in the Northwest sing somewhat different versions of the songs sung by winter wrens in the Northeast. One study used recordings from Hog Island in Bremen, where Audubon has a nature camp. The western winter wrens create numerous variations on their basic phrases, unheard of in the eastern birds.

“The contrast in the song organization between the eastern and western North American populations is extraordinary,” one researcher wrote.  “This contrast exists not only in the total repertoire size of different song types used by individuals, with the number of patterns in the West at least an order of magnitude greater than in the East, but also at the level of the individual song. … The variety within a western song is far greater than that within an eastern song. … Even if a single song unit occurs in only two contexts, the total number of permutations (or song patterns) that could be produced in a string of 60 such song units is astronomical.”

As with a lot of birds, the males’ songs are composed at least partly to attract females during breeding season. A male builds a number of nests in ground cavities or rotting logs, and a female who has presumably liked what she hears inspects the nests and chooses one. Some males attract several females in a single season.

There are at least two winter wrens in my woods, calling back and forth. Whatever biological functions their songs are fulfilling, there remains the fact of their inexpressible beauty. After all, I’m not searching for a wren mate, but I’m still transported by the song. And I haven’t even been able to see one of the little brown birds with cocked tail. I’ve only heard them singing. The information that comes through your ear is extraordinary.

What does any of this mean? I wondered if Thoreau remarked on the song of the winter wren. My word searches (another 21st century blessing?) through much, but not all, of his journals revealed no specific mention of winter wrens. In July 1859 he notes: “Begin to hear the sharp, brisk dittle-ittle-ittle of the wren amid the grass and reeds, generally invisible.” “Invisible” is a striking word, for me, because my winter wrens exist as unseen song. But he seems to be talking about a marsh wren.

Then I came across this entry from November 1853, and it suddenly dawned on me at least partly where this beauty resides.

“As I go up the back road (the sun rises about this hour), I am struck with the general stillness as far as birds are concerned. There is now no loud, cheerful effervescing with song as in the spring. Most are gone. I only hear some crows toward the woods. The road and ruts are all frosted and stiff, and the grass and clover leaves. At Swamp Bridge, I see crystals of ice six feet long, like very narrow and sharp spears, or like great window-sashes without glass between them, floating on the water. I see yarrow, autumnal dandelion, and I suppose that is turnip so freshly in flower in Hubbard’s field. Now that the sun is fairly risen, I see and hear a flock of larks in Wheeler’s meadow on left of the Corner road, singing exactly as in spring and twittering also, but rather faintly or suppressedly, as if their throats had grown up or their courage were less. The white birch seeds begin to fall and leave the core bare. I now hear a robin, and see and hear some noisy and restless jays, and a song sparrow chips faintly.”

This is one of the most gorgeous descriptions of November I have ever read. Late fall, the birds are mostly gone, the landscape is still, and the twittering that’s left sounds faint.

This depiction of fall when read in springtime opens the door to May. The winter wren, bravely singing with every ounce of energy in its little body, channels the sound of the cosmos gripping down and beginning to awaken. It pours straight out of the fullness of nature and gives life to life, to coming alive again in springtime after the lengthening shadow of fall, and dearth of winter.
The astronomical beauty of spring right there in the woods, in the music of the winter wrens.

Dana Wilde lives in Troy. You can contact him at dwilde.naturalist@gmail.com. His book “Summer to Fall: Notes and Numina from the Maine Woods” is available from North Country Press. Backyard Naturalist appears the second and fourth Thursdays each month.

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