Williamson's Weekly Nature Notes- January 14 2009

Every night throughout January of that year with a frost settling they gathered as regular as clockwork. Then, just half an hour after the sun had gone, they would all vanish.

I thought they had found a niche under the eaves and squeezed their way into our dusty, deserted loft where the bats were fast asleep. However, I kept careful watch and, to my amazement, watched the whole tribe disappear one at a time into an old tit nest box attached to the coal house.

Great tits had made a nest there the previous summer and I had forgotten to remove all the old moss and feathers, which probably harboured bird fleas. The result, however, was a nice insulated coop over which thick honeysuckle had twined, further protecting the shelter from the cold.

At dawn, out they all came like pennies out of a slot machine and quickly scattered into the woods in all directions.

As if drawn by a magnet, all returned at dusk, and after talking and strutting, bowing and curtseying '“ or so it seemed, to my amusement '“ this little crowd queued at the entrance to their dormitory, reminding me of old newsreels showing Londoners during the wartime blitz making an orderly descent into the Underground stations, where they could spend the night in safety.

As I say, this went on during the bitter frosts, and when at last the frosts went and the wrens had gone, I took the old nest box down to see how a score of birds had squeezed themselves into a pint pot. Oh dear. There at the bottom was not just the moss and feathers of the old nest but three dead wrens as well, quite squashed flat and completely dried out. Their 'friends' had just used them as extra blankets.

They may have died of suffocation, old age, or heat stroke '“ who knows?

In that same winter, the famous naturalist and writer Ted Ellis, who lived at Surlingham on the Norfolk Broads, reported a flock of 52 wrens gathering each evening on the side of a straw stack and vanishing into crevices. That seems to be a record number recorded.

Can anyone top that? Also, there appears to be no group noun for a gathering of wrens. I suggest a tittering, or a crush. If you can think of a better one, e-mail it to letters@westsussextoday.

co.uk or post it to the Gazette at Cannon House, Chatsworth Road, Worthing, BN11 1NA.