Oven Bird, the popular name of a group of tenuirostral birds of the subfamily furnarinm and the family of creepers, inhabiting the warm parts of South America and the West Indies. In the typical genus furnarius (Vieill.) the bill is moderate, slender, and slightly curved; wings and tail moderate, and tarsi long. The red oven bird (F. rufus, Vieill.), called Jiomero in La Plata, is about (5 in. long, reddish above and white below; it is seen generally in pairs, both in bushy and open places and near human habitations, running rapidly or making short flights from bush to bush in search of insects, especially coleoptera; it will also eat seeds; the note is loud and shrill. The nest is placed in an exposed situation on a tree, paling, window sill, or even in the interior of a house; both sexes work at it, alternately bringing a lump of clay or piece of straw and twig, which they fashion into a dome-shaped structure like a baker's oven, 6 or 8 in. in diameter and with walls about an inch thick; the opening is on the side, and near it is a partition reaching nearly to the roof, behind which is an inner chamber in which the eggs, four or five, are deposited on feathers and soft grass.

The genus cinclodcs (Gray) frequents the sea beach, and may often be seen walking on the masses of floating seaweed near the shore; some occasionally wander inland, and even to the height of 8,000 ft. on the Cordilleras; their food consists of insects, small crustaceans and mollusks, and seeds. The golden-crowned thrush of North America (seiurus aurocapil-lus, Swains.) is also called oven bird from the shape of its nest.

Bed Oven Bird (Furnarius rufus).