House Wren pokes head out of nest

This adult house wren pokes its head out of its nest to see if the coast is clear to carry on with its parental duties. It made countless repeat trips to the nest with its mouth full of insects and made my first visit to Sapsucker Woods unforgettable.
I drove to Ithaca, NY from Toronto this summer to visit Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology (yes, I’m that much of a bird nerd!) and fell in love with the lab’s 220-acre Sapsucker Woods Sanctuary.

Unusual rings on eggs

Over 20 years of monitoring, I’ve never come across house wren eggs with brown rings around the shells. Usually they are cream colored with brown speckles.

Concerned about eggs not yet hatched.

First sited these eggs on 7.11.19. 7.22.19 very nasty storm came through. We had a lot of damage in our town but nothing too bad at our house. We duct taped hanging basket earlier in the day but were not home when storm came through. When we came home basket was still there, nest and eggs intact. Noticed Mama Bird next morning, but haven’t seen Papa Bird. This morning haven’t seen Mama Bird either. Could these eggs take that long to hatch?

House Wren takes Tree Swallow nest

After a tree swallow had built a nest, a house wren laid her eggs in the nest.

Different occurrences in nature

On my monitoring trips, I have found things don’t always go as planned. I have found birds will assume another bird’s nesting spot from building over the existing nest to just lay the eggs in an existing nest of another bird.

House Wren Turnbull NWR

House Wren nest

Mom Currently sitting nest. Hatch expected in appx. 10 days.

House wren nest

House wren building a nest in a bird house

House wren

House Wren Nest

House wren nest in a lilac bush.

House Wren Nest.

Time to Fly Little One!

While it may seem that this House Wren was feeding this nestling, it actually was tempting it to join its brothers and sisters who had already fledged. The parent snatched that food out of the nestlings mouth as quickly as it went in. It took a while but the temping finally worked!!

House wren eggs

An egg a day for the past seven days in our bird house!

House wren eggs

House wren eggs laid 5/11.

House Wrens Constructing their Nest

New birdhouse created to attract House Wrens. Birdhouse was installed in March and the pair began their nest construction at the end of April.

house wren house cleaning

taking out the trash

Nest box house wrenx

We have very persistent house wrens in our nest box. This box has been used by house sparrows a couple of years ago, last year we put a metal washer on the hole, so the house sparrows couldn’t make the hole bigger; this year a house wren staked claim to the box, and fought off a house sparrow earlier in the season. He has finally attracted a female; and there must be eggs in the box. They are very interesting birds, very pretty song. They should have plenty of insects to feed on with all the rain we’ve had; the mosquitoes will be all over here in a couple more days; It’s amazing how they can get sticks into the nest box which are larger than they are and turn them around so they fit through the hole. Over the past 5 years we have gradually added natural plants to our yard (replacing grass) and it’s amazing how many more birds, butterflies and dragonflies we now get. It just takes a little bit.

Successful House Wren Hatchings

All of my bird videos (a playlist)

This playlist lists all of the bird videos I have uploaded to YouTube. Hope it works and is useful.

Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Cornell Lab of Ornithology