House Wren

A plain brown bird with an "effervescent" voice, the House Wren is a common backyard bird seen over almost all of the Western Hemisphere.

The House Wren is small and compact with a flat head and long curved beak. It has short wings and the tail is often held cocked above or slightly drooped from the body line.

The bird is a subdued brown with darker barring on the wings and tail. The pale eyebrow that is characteristic of wrens is quite pale in the House Wren.

House Wrens are very energetic and you may often see them hopping quickly through bushes pausing to sing their songs. They are found in open forests and forest edges, as well as backyards.

The House Wren has one of the largest ranges of any songbird in the New World. It breeds from Canada through the West Indies and Central America, and southward to the southernmost point of South America.

Twigs make up most of the nest

House Wrens pile twigs into cavities to make a bed on which to build a soft cup lined with a few feathers, grasses, animal hair, snakeskin or string. Despite their small size, they are fierce competitors, often evicting larger birds, dragging eggs or young chicks out of a nest and sometimes even killing the adult birds. House Wrens are the main source of nest failure for bluebirds, Tree Swallows, Prothonotary Warblers and chickadees.

Nests in tree cavities or nest boxes can become infested with mites and other parasites. Wrens will often add spider egg sacs to their nesting materials. Once the spiders hatch, they help the wrens by devouring the nest parasites.

The House Wren's diet consists of spiders, beetles, caterpillars, earwigs, daddy longlegs, flies, leafhoppers and springtails. They will sometimes eat small snail shells for the calcium and grit.

As with many birds, you may hear a wren before you see it. The long song may be hard to learn because the notes are nondescript and because there is so much of it! It is loud and insistent, making it hard to believe that such a little bird is making all that noise.