Bird name:

House Wren

Troglodytes aedon

Order

PASSERIFORMES

Family

Wrens (Troglodytidae)

Code 4

HOWR

Code 6

TROAED

ITIS

178541

Breeding Location:

Forests

Breeding Type:

Monogamous, Polygamous

Breeding Population:

Egg Color:

White with brown flecks

Number of Eggs:

5 - 9

Incubation Days:

13 - 15

Egg Incubator:

Female

Nest Material:

Sticks., Lined with hair, feathers, cocoons, and fine material.

Migration:

Most migrate

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General

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. Sexes are similar.

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.

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Bird Call Credits: The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Martyn Stewart, http://www.naturesound.org, Redmond, Washington USA. The reuse or copying of bird calls in this database is strictly forbidden.

Underparts

Belly, undertail coverts, chest, flanks, and foreneck.

Nape

Also called the hindneck or collar, it is the back of the neck where the head joins the body.

4 and 6 letter alpha codes

The four letter common name alpha code is is derived from the first two letters of the common first name and the first two letters of common last name. The six letter species name alpha code is derived from the first three letters of the scientific name (genus) and the first three letters of the scientific name (species). See (1) below for the rules used to create the codes..

Four-letter (for English common names) and six-letter (for scientific names) species alpha codes were developed by Pyle and DeSante (2003, North American Bird-Bander 28:64-79) to reflect A.O.U. taxonomy and nomenclature (A.O.U. 1998) as modified by Supplements 42 (Auk 117:847-858, 2000) and 43 (Auk 119:897-906, 2002). The list has been updated by Pyle and DeSante to reflect changes reported by the A.O.U from 2003 through 2006.

Field Guide to Birds of North America