House wren
House wrens occur across much of North America. They have lovely twittering songs, nest in holes, and can be extremely abundant (especially when artificial nest boxes are offered). Because they tend to nest in dense cover, I used electronic flash for illumination on most of these photos. House wrens quickly acclimate to the presence of a quiet human, and I managed to take several of these pictures with a 70-200 mm lens from only 2 feet away from the birds, who were feeding chicks in a nest box. The photos, including the one of arecently-fledged baby (below at right), were nesting in aspen groves along Convict Creek in the eastern Sierra, in Mono County, California, or in south San Diego County, California.
Images copyright by Mark A. Chappell
