Jenny Wren

The smallest British bird after the Goldcrest and Firecrest is the Wren (the species called Winter Wren in America, but not in Haddenham). It is diminutive, a tiny ball of feathers with a cocked tail. It weighs about 9 grams. What is always striking about Wrens is how active they are. They are the shrews of the bird world, needing constant replenishment to maintain their energy levels. Imagine its heart, no bigger than an orange pip, beating away furiously. I like Wrens and I am glad they are able to get their share of the food that I put out for the birds in my garden. They suddenly appear, nip in among the bigger birds, steal a morsel and disappear again. Bless their cotton socks.
There you have it, a tiny bird, with an endearing dialect name, Jenny Wren, and a ridiculously polysyllabic scientific one, Troglodytes troglodytes. I wonder who thought that one up? Probably an ancestor of the silly buggers who want us to call our wren the "Winter Wren".