House Wren (Troglodytes aedon)

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House Wren (Troglodytidae: Troglodytes aedon)

This overly energetic bird inhabits most of the United States and southern Canada, breeding throughout most of its range, and wintering in the southeastern United States and California.

Identifying Features: The House Wren is a brown bird, at first sight not particularly distinctive. However the tail is short and stubby and commonly held upright and perpendicular to the body. The wings have black bars.

Similar Species: There are a number of wren species in the Eastern Deciduous Forest, but most are rare or restricted to marshes and swamps. The most common similar species is the Carolina Wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus). The Carolina Wren is a larger bird (about 5.5 inches in length) relative to the House Wren (4.5 to 5.25 inches in length). The Carolina Wren also has a distinct, well marked white stripe through the eye. The eye stripe of the House Wren is present, but indistinct.

Habitat: House Wrens are found in a variety of habitats in the Eastern Deciduous Forest including the margins of forests, suburban areas, city parks, and farmlands. This is one of the commonest birds around houses and some people with little or no common sense (including ourselves) provide them with nesting boxes.

Food: Small insects gleaned from branches, twigs, and leaves.

Behavior: During the breeding season House Wrens are seen moving rapidly from branch to branch looking for food. The song is a complicated and extremely loud sequence of bubbling notes.

Reproduction: House Wrens nest in a wide variety of places including holes in trees, nesting boxes, flowerpots, and mailboxes. They will return to the same nesting spot year after year. Old nests are dismantled and removed before constructing a new nest. A brood consists of 5 to 8 white eggs that are thickly speckled with brown. The nest is a cup of twigs and grass lined with feathers or other soft material.

Notes: Every year we dutifully clean out the wren house and place it in the same favorite place among the branches and shrubs at one end of the yard. We are rewarded for our compassion and nurturing by a wren perching on the bedroom window and seranading us at the crack of dawn. Neither of us is a "Crack-of-dawn" type person. It is difficult to believe that so loud a noise can come out of such a small animal. The House Wrens are much less conspicuous after the breeding season is over. In the later summer and fall around our house they sleep at night on the bird feeder outside the dining room sliding door. We have been tempted to play "Metallica" music at them as a form of revenge for sleepless spring mornings.