Overview

Bewick's Wren: Small wren with unstreaked, gray to red-brown upperparts and plain white underparts. White eyebrows are conspicuous. Tail is long and white-edged with dark bars. Bill is long and slightly decurved. Legs and feet are gray. Eastern populations have seriously declined since the 1960s.

Range and Habitat

Bewick's Wren: Resident in British Columbia and the western and southern U.S. Eastern birds spend winters in the Gulf coast states. Preferred habitats include thickets, brush piles, hedgerows, open woodlands, and scrubby areas, often near streams.

Breeding and Nesting

Bewick's Wren: Four to eleven white eggs, flecked with purple, brown, and gray, are laid in a stick nest lined with leaves, grass, and feathers, and built in almost any available cavity, including a woodpecker hole, tin can, coat pocket or sleeve, basket, tool shed, or brush pile. Incubation ranges from 12 to 14 days and is carried out by the female.

Foraging and Feeding

Bewick's Wren: Diet consists mostly of insects and spiders; forages on the ground and in trees.

Readily Eats

Apple Slices, Peanut Butter

Vocalization

Bewick's Wren: Male sings "chip, chip, chip, de-da-ah, tee-dee". The call is a flat "jipp."

Similar Species

Bewick's Wren: House and Rock Wrens lack white eyebrows. Carolina Wren is rust-brown above and buff below. Marsh Wren is smaller and has a streaked back.