This House Wren peaked out the entrance to it’s comfy nest in the birdhouse to see what I was up to. There are one or more nestlings inside the bird house that the parents are feeding. Since they usually have 5-8 eggs according to the National Audubon Society, there are likely several hungry babies waiting for food. In the photo below the parent bird is bringing a good sized worm to it’s offspring.
While I watched both parents made a number of trips to bring food to the nestlings. They were hurrying so fast to fill those hungry mouths that they had a traffic jam as they both arrived with food at the nest box.
House Wrens are the truly plain brown bird. They are small, only about 5 inches long, with brown feathering that is darker on the upperside and lighter on the lowerside. They do show barring on their wings and tails that is distinctive. And they often cock their tails up in the air, a feature distinctive to wrens.
They have a bubbly song–listen to them on the Cornell ‘All About Birds’ webpage for this species. They are found throughout all of the lower 48 states and some parts of Canada though they only be present during summer in most areas.
This family was fortunate to have a nice nest box to raise their babies. House Wrens are so named because they are not shy about making their nests near where humans live. They are well known for making their nests in just about any cavity they can find including mailboxes, flowerpots and boots left on porches. Because of this they are one of the better known bird species.
I bet there are readers who have interesting stories about the crazy places they have seen House Wrens nest. So please share them below.