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The Songs of Desert Wrens
Cactus and stone live in their songs.
© Patty McGann
The Canyon Wren and Cactus Wren share common ancestry — and they’re close neighbors in the desert southwest. Yet their songs evolved along divergent acoustic lines. The rough trilled phrases of the Cactus Wren song pulse through the dense cactus, while the clear tones of the Canyon Wren echo off the hard stone, carrying a long distance.
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BirdNote®
The Songs of Desert Wrens
Written by Bob Sundstrom
This is BirdNote.
Two wrens are singing in a canyon in the arid Sonoran Desert. A Cactus Wren sings from dense stands of cholla cactus at the base of the canyon wall.
[Cactus Wren song]
At the same time, a Canyon Wren sings from the open face of the towering stone wall above.
[Canyon Wren song]
The songs intermingle.
[Both songs together]
The two wrens share common ancestry — and they’re close neighbors in the canyons. Yet their songs evolved along divergent acoustic lines — because a bird’s song must carry well in its immediate habitat. The rough trilled phrases of the Cactus Wren song pulse through the dense cactus…
[Cactus Wren song]
...while the clear tones of the Canyon Wren echo off the hard stone, carrying a long distance.
[Canyon Wren song]
With Cactus and Canyon wrens, there’s a clear sense of how the different habitats — cactus and stone — live in their songs.
[Both songs together]
For BirdNote, I’m Michael Stein.
Support comes from Wild Delight Bird Food, offering a variety of blends designed to mimic the natural resources wild birds crave, available at Chewy.com.
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Senior Producer: Mark Bramhill
Producer: Sam Johnson
Managing Producer: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Ariana Remmel
Content Director: Jonese Franklin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Cactus Wren ML56860 recorded by G. Keller, Canyon Wren ML31999021 recorded by A. Spencer.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2021 BirdNote May 2021 / March 2026 Narrator: Michael Stein.
ID# sound-27-2021-05-20 sound-27
Bob Sundstrom
Writer
Michael Stein
NarratorSights & Sounds
