House wrens are chiefly birds of open, dry forests mixed with shrubs. The
main part of their breeding range in WA is in low- to mid-elevation
east-side forest zones, down into the periphery of the steppe and along
rivers in steppe. Like many predominantly east-side species, they also
occur in the drier and more open parts of the west side: the area around
Vancouver WA, the lowlands of the Puget Sound (especially in the Fort
Lewis area and the San Juan Islands), and in a few other scattered, open
locales. Sequim is in the "banana belt", that rain-shadow created by the
Olympics. For the Gap project, we modeled House Wrens in most of the
Puget Trough, on the plains around Vancouver, and in a few scattered
locales of known breeding. I suspect they are also along the I-5 corridor
through Lewis and Cowlitz County, and along the Chehalis River through
Grays Harbor County, or soon will be as development and logging give them
more open areas. I wouldn't be surprised if they are probably also at
leat part way up the drier, northeast slopes of the Olympics, espcially
where logging is heavy. Port Angeles is at the edge of the rain shadow
and may be too wet for more than an occasional bird, but development and
tree clearing might allow them to move in eventually.

Kelly Cassidy -- Washington Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit
Box 357980, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, 98195
kelly at u.washington.edu --- 206-685-4195 --- 206-368-8076

On Wed, 4 Jun 1997 Norton360 at aol.com wrote:

> TWEETS,
> After a while I began to really search. It is regularly reported in the
> Sequim area and always by people living on the hills to the south. This year
> Bob Boekelheide found them nesting or at least singing in one of the
> clearcuts in the hills south of Sequim and took me there where we heard
> several and glimpsed two in the fog.
> Most of my birding has been in the lowlands or quite high. My suspicion
> is that they are birds of the middle area in this general area. Perhaps
> someone can give confirmation to that theory or announce that they live on a
> coastal bluff and have had nesting House Wrens for years.
> Bob Norton
> Joyce, WA (near Port Angeles in a frost pocket)
> norton360 at aol.com
>