The wren: a biography

Moss, S (2018) The wren: a biography. Square Peg, London. ISBN 9781910931936

Official URL: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1116517/the-wren/9...

Abstract

The wren is a paradox of a bird. On the one hand wrens are ubiquitous. They are Britain’s most common bird, with 8.5 million breeding pairs and have by far the loudest song in proportion to their size. They also thrive up and down Britain and Ireland: from the smallest city garden to remote offshore islands, blustery moors to chilly mountains. Yet many people, particularly a younger generation, are not sure if they have ever seen a wren. Perhaps because the wren is so tiny, weighing just as much as two A4 sheets of paper, and so busy, always on the move, more mouse than bird. However if we cast our eyes back to recent history wrens were a mainstay of literary, cultural and popular history. The wren was on postage stamps and the farthing, it featured in nursery rhymes and greetings cards, poems and rural ‘wren hunts’, still a recent memory in Ireland particularly.

Item Type: Book
Divisions: School of Writing, Publishing and the Humanities
UoA: English Literature & Language
Date Deposited: 19 Nov 2018 17:34
Last Modified: 05 Jan 2022 15:46
URI / Page ID: https://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/id/eprint/11695
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