ovenbirds or furnariids are a large family of small suboscine passerine birds found in mexico , and central and south america .
they form the family furnariidae .
the ovenbird (seiurus aurocapillus), which breeds in north america , is a distantly related bird , a wood warbler (family parulidae) .
the ovenbirds are a diverse group of insectivores which get their name from the elaborate , vaguely "oven-like" clay nests built by the horneros , although most other ovenbirds build stick nests or nest in tunnels or clefts in rock .
the spanish word for "oven" (horno) gives the horneros their name .
furnariid nests are always constructed with a cover , and  up to six pale blue , greenish or white eggs are laid .
the eggs hatch after between 15 and 22 days , and the young fledge after a further 13 to 20 days .
they are small to medium-sized birds , ranging from 9 to 35 centimetres in length .
while individial species often are habitat specialists , species of this family can be found in virtually any neotropical habitat , ranging from city parks inhabited by rufous horneros , to tropical amazonian lowlands by many species of foliage-gleaners , to temperate barren andean highlands inhabited by several species of miners .
there are even two species , the seaside and the surf cinclodes , which are associated with rocky coasts .
recently , the woodcreepers (formerly dendrocolaptidae) were merged into this family , following analysis of mtdna cytochrome b and several ndna sequences (irestedt et al .
2002) .
moyle et al .
(2009), while confirming the overall phylogenetic pattern , instead opted for maintaining the woodcreepers as a separate family , while splitting the ovenbirds (as traditionally defined) into two families , furnariidae and scleruridae .
the systematics of the dendrocolaptinae were reviewed by raikow (1994) based on morphology and by irestedt et al .
(2004) based on analysis of nuclear and mitochondrial dna .
using the latter approach , the suspected major lineages of the furnariinae (foliage-gleaners , spinetails , and true ovenbirds) were confirmed , but some new lineages were discovered and the relationships of several genera had to be revised (fjelds et al .
, 2005) .
the taxonomic arrangement presented below is based on recent studies of ovenbird relationships (irestedt et al .
2006, chesser et al .
2007, moyle et al .
2009) .
however , because ovenbirds and woodcreepers are treated here as a single family some taxonomic ranks were modified .
the ovenbird (seiurus aurocapilla) is a small songbird of the new world warbler family (parulidae) .
this migratory bird breeds in eastern north america and winters in central america , many caribbean islands , florida , and northern venezuela .
