Ovenbird - Ross Feldner

This modestly colored member of the warbler family gets its name from its nest, a dome, built on the ground, covered in leaves that looks like a Dutch oven.

They sing out in summer with a loud, rapid “teacher-teacher-teacher” song. Even the poet Robert Frost wrote about its song in his 1916 poem "The Oven Bird."

Often confused with a thrush, the Ovenbird’s coloration helps it blend in with its surroundings. It likes to forage on the ground, hopping along in leafy woods and thickets looking for insects in leaf litter and rotting logs. Ovenbirds eat a wide variety of insects including beetles, ants, caterpillars, flies, worms, and spiders.

Ovenbirds are often victims of parasitization by Cowbirds, but unlike most of the Cowbirds’s other victims, Ovenbird nestlings often survive, even if sharing the nest with young Cowbirds. Despite the loss of chicks due to cowbirds, the ovenbird population has been relatively stable, estimated at around 22 million.