In rural areas it does some damage to fruit, vegetables, and grain. On the other hand, it also eats a number of insects that damage those same crops.
Less than 5 inches long, this tiny bird seems to live right at home with a man-made house. It breeds throughout the United States, except for the South Atlantic and Gulf areas, and also nests in southern Canada. It winters in the southern United States and Mexico.
The rich, bubbling song of the familiar little house wren is one of the sweetest associations connected with town or suburban life. Its tiny body allows it to creep into all sorts of nooks and crannies for its insect food. A cavity in a fence post or porch roof, a wren box, a hole in a tree, will be welcomed as a nesting site. Their food is grasshoppers, beetles, bugs, spiders, cutworms, ticks, and plant lice.
Recognized universally as Johnny and Jenny wren, welcome neighbors, they still show peculiarities in their behavior. Jealous of their home areas, wrens sometimes puncture the eggs of other small species nesting nearby, and Johnny may have two, possibly three mates at one time.
A dark, slate-gray sparrow with conspicuous white outer tail feathers and a white belly. An abundant species, it breeds in brushy, cutover forests and is usually seen by urban dwellers when transient or wintering flocks come into residential areas. Juncos often winter at feeding stations in cities, suburbs, or towns.
It breeds from the tree line south to the northern states, farther south in the mountains. It winters in most of the U.S.
These birds are commonplace in appearance and not very large at a length of 10 inches, but are distinguished by piercing and oft-repeated cries of “kildee.” They breed throughout the United States and most of Canada, and winter from the central United States to South America.
The killdeer is probably the best known of the shorebirds, perhaps because of its contrasting colors and startling cry. It is noisy and restless, like people, but most of its activities are beneficial to man. Its food is harmful insects, particularly weevils and beetles, flies, ticks, and wondrously enough, mosquitoes and their larvae.
The four pointed eggs are marked like pebbles, and laid in an unlined depression on the ground. Such dangerous sites as gravel roads, quarries, or even potato patches have been used.