Overview

House Wren: Small wren (western parkmanii), with brown head, nape, and back showing very fine dark brown bars, faint white eyebrows, and gray-brown underparts with fine brown bars on flanks and below tail. Wings and tail are brown with darker bars. Bill is thin and slightly decurved.

Range and Habitat

House Wren: Breeds from southern Canada southward to central California, central New Mexico, northern Arkansas, and northern Georgia. Other forms are found from Mexico southward throughout South America and the West Indies. Spends winters in the southern U.S. and Mexico, from California, Texas, and central Arkansas, to southern Maryland and southward to the Gulf coast and throughout Florida. Preferred habitats include open woodlands, forest edges, forest openings, shrubby areas, farmlands, orchards, residential areas, and suburban parks.

Breeding and Nesting

House Wren: Five to nine white eggs with brown flecks are laid in a nest made of sticks and grass, lined with feathers and soft materials, and built in a tree cavity, crevice, or nest box. Incubation ranges from 13 to 15 days and is carried out by the female.

Foraging and Feeding

House Wren: Eats insects such as grasshoppers, beetles, crickets, true bugs, and caterpillars; also feeds on spiders, millipedes, and snails; forages by gleaning insects from leaves and shrubs.

Readily Eats

Apple Slices, Peanut Butter

Vocalization

House Wren: Song is beautiful, trilling, energetic flutelike melody, delivered in a gurgling outburst and repeated at short intervals. Call is a rough, scolding "cheh-cheh", which often runs into a scolding chatter.

Similar Species

House Wren: Winter Wren is smaller and darker, with shorter tail, stronger bars on belly and flanks, and a more distinct eyestripe. Carolina and Bewick's wrens have paler bellies and distinct white eyestripes.