Bewick’s Wren, Thryomanes bewickii

Bewick’s Wren, Thryomanes bewickii eremophilus. Photograph taken within a residential community in Hereford, Arizona, February 2007. Photograph and identification courtesy of Bob Behrstock, Sierra Vista, Arizona (naturewideimages.com).

Bewick’s Wren, Thryomanes bewickii eremophilus. Photograph taken within the greater Palm Springs area of southern California, March 2021. Photography courtesy of Dr. Tom Bartol, Carlsbad, California.

Bewick’s Wren, Thryomanes bewickii eremophilus, is one of fifteen subspecies of Bewick’s Wren, eight of which are found in Mexico. They are a member of the Troglodytidae Family of Wrens, which has eighty-six members placed in nineteen genera, and the only global species in the Thryomanes Genus. They are known in Mexico as cucarachero colinegro.

Bewick’s Wren is a mid-sized songbird. The sexes are identical. They are easily recognized by their white eye-line, white breast and their tail feathers that are barred with black, and tipped with white spots. Their upper parts are brown to grayish brown; the throat and underparts are whitish and washed gray on the sides and flanks. Their upper mandibles are blackish or of a dusky horn color, with a paler tomia. The lower mandible is paler than the upper. Their iris is brown or auburn, and their legs and feet are dull pale brown, drab or horn colored.

Bewick’s Wren is found in arid bushy areas, scrub and thickets in open country, open and riparian woodland, and chaparral away from humans at elevations up to 1,740 m (5,700 feet). They are known to make some short-distance migrations. They are active foragers, normally found as solitary individuals that glean insect adults, eggs, and larvae, and other small invertebrates from leaves, branches, and trunks in close proximity to the ground and may forage on the ground in areas of sparse vegetation. They have life spans of up to eight years.

Bewick’s Wren is a year-round non-migratory resident of Mexico being found within Baja California and Baja California Sur and from northeast Sonora to northern and western Nuevo León south through the interior to central Oaxaca, western Puebla and west-central Veracruz. The eremophilus subspecies is found in west central Mexico in the states of northeast Sonora, Chihuahua and Coahuila south to northern Zacatecas.

From a conservation perspective Bewick’s Wren is currently considered to be of Least Concern with stable, widely-distributed populations. Their populations east of the Mississippi River have virtually disappeared and those west of the Mississippi have declined.