What is the smallest bird in Britain? Detailed answer

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What is the smallest bird in Britain? Detailed answer

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What is the smallest bird in Britain?

Two kinglets claim the title of the smallest bird in Britain at once: yellow and red-headed. Both pichuga are 9 cm long, while the wren (which for some reason is considered the smallest) has a size of 9,5 to 10 cm and is thus the third largest British bird.

At the same time, the wren is the most common wild bird in Britain, which can be found in almost any natural environment. To date, there are up to ten million parental couples.

The wren's Latin name, Troglodytes troglodytes, means "troglodyte", "savage", "cave dweller". Wrens build domed nests of twigs and leaves in the most incredible places: caves, burrows, skeletons of dead animals, folds of church curtains, and even garden watering cans.

The male usually builds six nests in his territory, leaving the choice to the female, although there are cases when the number of these nests turned out to be five times larger.

Despite its tiny size, the wren's shrill "chirping" is carried for a kilometer, and this is one of the few bird songs that can be listened to regardless of the time of year. Wrens are very sensitive to the cold, and we often see "social roosting" when up to thirty birds huddle together to keep each other warm.

The wren's English name, wren, comes from the Old English wrenna, which, among other things, meant "horned" - apparently an allusion to the feathered tail lifted up. In Norfolk, the wren is still called stag - from the Danish word meaning "thorn", "point".

In the west of Britain and Ireland, on St. Stephen's Day (December 26), they organize a real "wren hunt". This is one of the most important Halloween traditions. The wren is caught and hung from a pole, after which a whole performance begins: adults and children in masks go from house to house and, in exchange for a song and a wren feather, demand food and drink from the owners, preferably beer.

The Latin name of the yellow-headed beetle, Regulus regulus, is translated as "little king", probably because of the golden stripe "crowning" the head of the pichuga. An adult beetle weighs about the same as a fivepence coin (5 g). There were stories about how one hungry kingling, out of desperation, grabbed a large dragonfly, and she "dragged" him into the air.

The yellow-headed beetles are fairly sturdy birds and regularly migrate across the North Sea to overwinter in Britain. Kingwings nest in coniferous, usually pine forests, and the fairly wide distribution of coniferous plantations in Britain over the past fifty years suggests that the kinglet has become a much less rare bird than before.

The red-headed beetle, on the contrary, remains elusive. It was added to the list of breeding birds in Britain only in 1962, and today the total number of parental pairs of the red-headed kingcrest is probably no more than 100.

Author: John Lloyd, John Mitchinson

Random interesting fact from the Great Encyclopedia:

What is a sonar?

Let's start with the concept of "echo". When sound bounces off a large object, it bounces back and we hear an echo. When a radio signal strikes a large object, we also receive a signal in response, which is called a radio echo.

The device that captures the radio echo is called a radar. The radar set sends out a radio signal. The signal is sent into space using an antenna. The radio signal, reflected from the object, partially returns back and is fixed by the radar antenna. This received signal is called a radar echo. A special radar unit converts the radar echo into an image that can be seen.

Sonar is very similar to radar. It also detects underwater objects using echoes. Radio signals cannot travel long distances underwater, so sonar sends out sound signals. Compared to normal sounds, the sonar signals are very powerful. Most of them are millions of times more powerful than screaming. These very loud sounds are emitted in impulses. Each one lasts a very small fraction of a second.

Some sonars make a sound that can be heard. The sound of others is so high that the human ear does not perceive it. But the sonar installation has a special receiver that collects the returned echo. It informs about objects under water.

Such installations are used to search for oil deposits on land. The sound pulse is sent deep into the earth. The echo is reflected from different rocks lying in the ground in different ways. This helps geologists predict what might be there.

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