You won’t hear these songs on ‘America’s Got Talent’ but they sure are entertaining

The harsh, gravelling sound of a song rang out over the Market Lake Marsh. Something needed a voice lesson and the voice coaches were too busy to help the poor soul trying to perform. I could envision Blake and Adam trying to help the singer as the weird notes sounded across the marsh grass.

The next series of notes from the same clump of bull rushes was totally different, but from the same male Marsh Wren as he was making repairs to the series of nests he had built over the spring and summer. It was the last week of July and the busy little bird that resembled a fourth of July Bumble Bee firecracker as he prepared to leave for the winter. His kids and one of his partners had left it in a terrible mess.

In the Marsh Wren world, the females do a lot of talking but no singing while most mature males develop about 200 individual songs. This bird world needs some education on sexual discrimination to allow the girls some singing.

The male Marsh Wrens arrive in southeastern Idaho in March about 10 days before the females show up. They use this time to repair the winter damage on the old nests and weave about 15 to 22 more as they defend their claimed area. Once the girls arrive, the boys began wooing them with their singing and house building talents. The best singers and builders usually attract from five to seven females to mate with while the non-singing males remain mateless. It gives these lonely bachelors all summer to work on their music lessons.

After nesting begins the males continue singing, but they are not friendly to any other birds including Black-Crowned Night Herons, blackbirds and other wrens. The man of the territory doesn’t put up with others nesting in their self-proclaimed nation. All others are the enemy and the male Marsh Wrens peck holes in any foreign eggs laid within their boundaries. Their sharp beaks are strong enough to peck through even large bird eggs.

Being a polygamist, the males stay very busy protecting the family unit. He usually stays hidden low in the thick cattails or bulrush patches, using the extra dummy nests as a hiding place or an attack position. But by singing up to 30 times each minute, their location can be found but not pinpointed because of their ability to hide in the thick vegetation.

Occasionally these beautiful birds can be seen perched near the top of the reeds, doing the splits and singing at the top of their voice. But it is their curiosity to find out who the intruder is that exposes them. If the predatory weasel shows up, their singing becomes alarm calls.

They are really entertaining to watch while you are sitting blind and can turn a slow time watching for other birds into an exciting adventure. Most of these singers will take their talents, or lack of talents, to the South when they migrate during September and October.

In the meantime, I will enjoy the males as they continue to sing while they work. But I hope some of the ones I heard last week will get some voice lessons from any professional that will force them to stay in tune. Come next March they will be back and I hope the winter snows will be easy on rebuilt nests and all they will have to do is replace the carpet with new cattail fluff.