Troglodytes aedon
Order Passeriformes
Family Troglodytidae
Adult.— Upper parts warm brown; wings and tail faintly barred with black; under parts grayish, the flanks faintly barred with bill long, slender; tail more than 1 1/2 in. long.
Nest, of sticks, etc., in a hole in a tree or box.
Eggs, sometimes as many as eight, thickly speckled with pinkish-brown.
The House Wren is a common summer resident in most of New England and the lower Hudson Valley, but it is a local bird, and may be wholly absent from certain regions. It is rare in northern New England, and confined to the Transition Zone. Occasionally it is found nesting in dead trees in the burnt tracts away from the settlements, but as a rule any wren seen in the forests of northern New England is a Winter Wren. The House Wren arrives late in April, or early in May, and stays till October. It frequents apple orchards, or the yards about houses. Its small size, brown, unstreaked upper parts, and its pert ways readily distinguish it from other small birds. It often cocks its tail over its back, especially when scolding an intruder. When it sings, it holds its tail pointed downward.
The House Wren’s song is a vigorous, bubbling performance, the notes following each other very rapidly. Its scolding-note is a harsh grating chatter, often uttered by the bird from its hiding-place in a stone wall or a brush heap, into and out of which it slips with the ease of a mouse. (See Winter Wren.)
Hoffmann – A Guide to the Birds of New England and Eastern New York (1904)