Three ‘house’ birds to look for in Minnesota backyards

Looking for birding opportunities close to home? Birds with “house” built into their names are, not surprisingly, common urban residents. Three such birds found in Minnesota include the house wren, house finch and house sparrow. Here’s a quick bio of these usual backyard suspects:

Residency: While relative newcomers to Minnesota, these are now common permanent residents in urban and suburban settings in much of Minnesota, or short-distance migrants.

Coloring: The males are rosy around the face and upper breast with a streaky brown back, belly and tail. The pigmentation depends on their food. The females and juveniles are brown overall with streaks.

Size: Close to the same size as a house sparrow in the 5.1 to 5.5-inch range, but more slender and just slightly shorter.

Food: Ground and tree forager for seeds, buds and fruit. Even the nestlings are fed primarily regurgitated plant food. Fill feeders with small, black oil sunflower seed. They feed in large flocks.

Nests: Open-cup shaped, and built in vegetation or structures. If you leave up a winter wreath too long, you may well find one of these nests tucked in it come spring.

Song: Long and twittering: shorturl.at/cWGgI

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Residency: It’s a common breeding species and migrant. It winters in the southern U.S. and Mexico. The house wren was an abundant species during the Minnesota Breeding Bird Atlas.

Coloring: A nondescript brown with a paler throat and dark barring on its wings and short tail.

Size: It’s chickadee-sized, ranging 4.3 to 5.1 inches.

Food: Insects and spiders.

Nests: A cavity nester that will use old woodpecker holes, tree hollows, nest boxes, drain pipes and old hornet nests. They’re fierce when it comes to securing nesting sites, and can be a major source of nest failure for bluebirds, chickadees and other species.

Song: Described by All About Birds as long, jumbled bubbling: shorturl.at/gbX3m

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Range: Introduced in New York in 1851, they are now common across nearly all of North America, although not universally loved because of their nesting and feeding habits.

Coloring: Breeding males are more brightly colored, with gray heads, white cheeks, a black bib and rufous neck. The females are “buffy brown” overall with dingier underparts. The backs are striped with buff, black and brown. These nonnative sparrows have a larger, rounded head and stouter bill than native sparrows.

Size: About the size of a dark-eyed junco, but described as “stockier,” and “full bodied.” Length in the 5.9- to 6.7-inch range.

Food: Mostly grain and seeds, including livestock feed, ragweed and crabgrass. They eat insects as well and feed them to their young. At feeders they will consume millet, milo, sunflower seeds and more.

Nests: The house sparrow likes to nest in manmade structures such as eaves, streetlights and nest boxes. They sometimes evict other birds from nest holes, including Eastern bluebirds and tree swallows, and aggressively defend their nest holes.

Song: Simple cheeps and chirrups: allaboutbirds.org/guide/House_Sparrow/sounds

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Information for this article comes from the Minnesota Breeding Bird Atlas, Cornell Lab’s All About Birds and Audubon.org.