Do House Wrens eat small lizards? (1 Viewer)

Hello

My wife and I are new birders, and we still struggle with birds we see for the first time.

We live in Cali, Colombia, South America, it's a seasonless city that still has lots of trees and remains of "tropical dry forest", just 3°N of the equator.

In our garden we have a hummingbird feeder, and also a cup where I place nectar for a bananaquit that visits us. Our (urban) neighborhood also has some blue and yellow tanagers, flycatchers and many other birds. Our house also has house geckos (small lizards)

Today we saw in our garden a small brown bird, in the floor among the bushes. When it came out it was carrying a very small (baby) house gecko in it's beak. A lookup in a quick guide of "birds in our city" we have, shows only one bird that looks similar: the house wren.

The problem is, every resource I read about it says they it only insects, maybe snails. There seems to be a "Carolina wren" in North America that is known to eat small lizards, but I found no reports of the regular house wren eating small lizards.

Can any of you confirm whether you've seen house Wrens eating stuff other than insects?

If he/she will come back I'll try to take a picture, but it was a very skittish, ninja-like bird

I'd not be surprised - wrens will eat anything small enough for them to catch. Most lizards are too large for that, but a recent hatchling is probably small enough.

I agree with nutcracker. Cannot confirm first-hand, as for some reason I see very few house wrens, and where I live (42 deg N) there are no lizards at all. (Should be fine habitat for skinks, but they have not been seen nearby in 150 years.)

Nutcracker said:

I'd not be surprised - wrens will eat anything small enough for them to catch. Most lizards are too large for that, but a recent hatchling is probably small enough.

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There are some much heftier Wrens in S America than just Winter Wren so I'd say definitely.

Thank you both!

I hope I see him/her again.

Cali is a great place for birding, you will enjoy !

I've not seen House Wren eating reptiles though. We'd love to have a photo to confirm your identification !

Valéry Schollaert said:

Cali is a great place for birding, you will enjoy !

I've not seen House Wren eating reptiles though. We'd love to have a photo to confirm your identification !

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I saw the bird once more, but I didn't have the camera at the ready. I'm Now on a birding trip away from home, so hopefully when I return home in a week I'll have another chance to photograph it for ID.

We live in Tampa, Florida and I build bird houses for our yard ... we have one house just outside our front window and watched as the babes were feed baby lizards.
So yes, they do eat them up.