The house wren is a small bird, well known in Suriname. It
lives very near to people. It is brown and often has its
brown-black striped tail in vertical position. It sings all day
from 5 in the morning, when it is still dark, up to the evening.
When not singing, it will mostly seek for insects.
It builds its cup-shaped nest near or even in houses and
buildings, often under the ridge of the roof, but sometimes in a
sawing-machine, in boots or in other things that are little used.
For the material of the nests it uses all kind of materials. In
my room at the university a nest was made of paper-clips, lined
with down. The eggs are small, green with dark spots.
They can raise young up to four times a year. Sometimes you see a
wren feeding an enormous young, a young of a brood parasite, the
shiny cowbird.
At sunset a whole family of house wrens can be seen to take a
bath in the sand in a garden, preferably dry sand from
shell-ridges. They make a small cup in the sand and throw sand on
themselves by flapping with their wings. From their territory
they will chase away any intruding house wren without mercy. A song of a House wren was recorded
by Ribot in Nickerie in January 2006 and a video of a
House wren taking a bath, was made by Leo Olmtak in his
garden.
Each small square indicates the observation of at least one (group) of these birds, the medium ones at least 4 observations on different days and the largest ones 10 or more. The color of each square indicates: blue for coastal area, yellow for savanna and red for rainforest.
Photo at the top of the page was made by Pieter Verheij and the second one by Suzette Eeltink at Hotel de Plantage in April 2008. The third one (of a young bird) is by Stephan Ferrier, all in Suriname. Then comes photos by Pascal Dubois in French Guyane and one by Erik Toorman, at Kwatta in Suriname (juni 2003) and the last one again by Pieter Verheij in January 2005 carrying food to the nest.
Names
More pictures of wrens and other birds from Suriname, part 7
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