A Little Wren Has Wandered in and All Is Gone Awry
A family of Carolina Wrens sets up housekeeping – year after year – in the garage
A family of Carolina Wrens sets up housekeeping – year after year – in the garage
I don't remember the year a little wren wandered into the garage and set up housekeeping. Five years ago, maybe eight – the three inch circle cut from the redwood siding shows enough wear to support many seasons having passed. Her first nest was hid cleverly behind a yellow enamel tub hanging from a pegboard festooned in yard tools. Later nests were crafted atop a window casing, buried in a pile of hardware and other odd havens inside our two-car garage.
In the early years we didn't much pay attention to the goings on of this ornithological family unit, except for time when I pulled my car into the garage and saw fledglings popping across the concrete floor like corn kernels in hot oil. I quickly closed the door and parked outside for two weeks. That was the year my husband cut the hole in the wall, allowing use of the garage as intended and with a clear conscience.
A Carolina Wren nest is a bulky, somewhat messy construction of dry grass, twigs, pieces of leaves, moss, tiny roots. Wrens generally prefer a domed abode with a tunneling entrance that opens into a cozy interior lined in feathers, animal hair, moss and slender grasses. Our wrens eventually settled on a pegboard location in a thick ball of twine with a hole large enough for the anticipated family.
Mid-April, the nest cradled five eggs, a little shy of average for the species, painted creamy white with flecks of ruddy brown. Ma wren paid little attention to our automotive comings and goings, and we returned the favor. One day in late April I saw her flit from the nest and I peeked inside. Hatchlings! Two, maybe three, maybe more. Little pterodactyls covered in gray skin with unusually large eyes still sightless. From the top of their dimpled heads sprang a poof of fine fuzz. They were hardly the stuff of cherubim cuteness.
Ma Wren sat protectively on the chicks, her days consumed by long stretches domestic boredom and rare outings to hunt for food. Her return with a bug or worm always hastened a blossoming of bright orange mouths in hungry expectation. Food gathering, however, mostly fell to Pa Wren who, far more skittish and elusive around humans, delivered vittles frequently and quickly but never hanging around to check on the family.
As the brood swelled in size and activity, Ma Wren started looking like she had crossed the sanity threshold into extremis. I wondered when the chicks would fledge.
That day came at the end of April when I heard a frantic fluttering sound echoing from a large trash bin. I moved closer and listened to muffled chirping. Quickly, I closed the garage door and started digging. A baby wren popped out and flew off. The flapping sound continued so I kept digging through paper, plastic, wood and wire debris until I reached the bottom and saw a tiny fledgling looking up. It seemed a little weak, so I cupped my palms entirely around him and tucked him back into the nest some four feet away. I turned to leave and ... more flapping! But the black trash bag was empty! Then I saw movement underneath the bag – three more fledglings. All five newly fledged wrens had been stuck in the trash bin.
By the time I got them all out, Ma Wren entered through the wall opening in complete hysteria, flapping and shrieking as she tried to round up the brood now scattered all over the garage. Everyone was hysterical, flapping and shrieking including myself. For every bird I pushed into the nest another tumbled out, flew erratically off and invariably hit a wall. Clearly, this was more commotion than collaboration and the best course of action was to leave the garage and let the parents clean up the mess. Criminy!
The next day, two fledges were stuck again between bag and bin, even though the bin was now moved to the center of the garage. I dislodged one and it flew right out. The other, the weakling, just sat quietly at the bottom. I lifted him gently in my hand where he stayed until I placed him on a soft terry towel on a low shelf in easy view. Less than two hours later, I found him cold and lifeless on the floor.
Very quickly three fledges mastered the finesse to fly through the hole and leave the nest for good. The last one, however, struggled to grasp the concept – flying adroitly inside the garage but not able to distinguish a window from a bona fide exit. Ma Wren offered encouraging shrieks and chirps and graceful demonstrations but junior failed to catch on and didn't survive.
While our privacy in the woods is temporarily abandoned by the visitation of this wren family, sociality is at the heart of human existence and we enjoy the seasonal opportunity to build another link in our relationship with nature. Folks we know show surprise at our accommodation to what are considered common pests. If we were indifferent or unaffected by the theatrical performance of nesting birds, might we also be guilty of overestimating the bigness of our own littleness? In any event, who knew a garage to be so exciting.
It was deep into dusk one week after the family had left and I walked into the garage. The corner of my eye caught a brief flash of movement near the vacant ball of twine. I looked inside and there was the wide-eyed surprise of another Carolina wren. C-r-i-m-i-n-y!
In the early years we didn't much pay attention to the goings on of this ornithological family unit, except for time when I pulled my car into the garage and saw fledglings popping across the concrete floor like corn kernels in hot oil. I quickly closed the door and parked outside for two weeks. That was the year my husband cut the hole in the wall, allowing use of the garage as intended and with a clear conscience.
A Carolina Wren nest is a bulky, somewhat messy construction of dry grass, twigs, pieces of leaves, moss, tiny roots. Wrens generally prefer a domed abode with a tunneling entrance that opens into a cozy interior lined in feathers, animal hair, moss and slender grasses. Our wrens eventually settled on a pegboard location in a thick ball of twine with a hole large enough for the anticipated family.
Mid-April, the nest cradled five eggs, a little shy of average for the species, painted creamy white with flecks of ruddy brown. Ma wren paid little attention to our automotive comings and goings, and we returned the favor. One day in late April I saw her flit from the nest and I peeked inside. Hatchlings! Two, maybe three, maybe more. Little pterodactyls covered in gray skin with unusually large eyes still sightless. From the top of their dimpled heads sprang a poof of fine fuzz. They were hardly the stuff of cherubim cuteness.
Ma Wren sat protectively on the chicks, her days consumed by long stretches domestic boredom and rare outings to hunt for food. Her return with a bug or worm always hastened a blossoming of bright orange mouths in hungry expectation. Food gathering, however, mostly fell to Pa Wren who, far more skittish and elusive around humans, delivered vittles frequently and quickly but never hanging around to check on the family.
As the brood swelled in size and activity, Ma Wren started looking like she had crossed the sanity threshold into extremis. I wondered when the chicks would fledge.
That day came at the end of April when I heard a frantic fluttering sound echoing from a large trash bin. I moved closer and listened to muffled chirping. Quickly, I closed the garage door and started digging. A baby wren popped out and flew off. The flapping sound continued so I kept digging through paper, plastic, wood and wire debris until I reached the bottom and saw a tiny fledgling looking up. It seemed a little weak, so I cupped my palms entirely around him and tucked him back into the nest some four feet away. I turned to leave and ... more flapping! But the black trash bag was empty! Then I saw movement underneath the bag – three more fledglings. All five newly fledged wrens had been stuck in the trash bin.
By the time I got them all out, Ma Wren entered through the wall opening in complete hysteria, flapping and shrieking as she tried to round up the brood now scattered all over the garage. Everyone was hysterical, flapping and shrieking including myself. For every bird I pushed into the nest another tumbled out, flew erratically off and invariably hit a wall. Clearly, this was more commotion than collaboration and the best course of action was to leave the garage and let the parents clean up the mess. Criminy!
The next day, two fledges were stuck again between bag and bin, even though the bin was now moved to the center of the garage. I dislodged one and it flew right out. The other, the weakling, just sat quietly at the bottom. I lifted him gently in my hand where he stayed until I placed him on a soft terry towel on a low shelf in easy view. Less than two hours later, I found him cold and lifeless on the floor.
Very quickly three fledges mastered the finesse to fly through the hole and leave the nest for good. The last one, however, struggled to grasp the concept – flying adroitly inside the garage but not able to distinguish a window from a bona fide exit. Ma Wren offered encouraging shrieks and chirps and graceful demonstrations but junior failed to catch on and didn't survive.
While our privacy in the woods is temporarily abandoned by the visitation of this wren family, sociality is at the heart of human existence and we enjoy the seasonal opportunity to build another link in our relationship with nature. Folks we know show surprise at our accommodation to what are considered common pests. If we were indifferent or unaffected by the theatrical performance of nesting birds, might we also be guilty of overestimating the bigness of our own littleness? In any event, who knew a garage to be so exciting.
It was deep into dusk one week after the family had left and I walked into the garage. The corner of my eye caught a brief flash of movement near the vacant ball of twine. I looked inside and there was the wide-eyed surprise of another Carolina wren. C-r-i-m-i-n-y!
A flash slideshow from egg to fledge is online at http://gass.com/
Ma Wren sat protectively on the chicks, her days consumed by long stretches domestic boredom and rare outings to hunt for food.
The hatchlings looked like little pterodactyls covered in gray skin -- hardly the stuff of cherubim cuteness.
The return of Ma Wren with a bug or worm always hastened a blossoming of bright orange mouths in hungry expectation.
The wren family has been setting up housekeeping in our garage for many years. These are hatchlings from 2010.
The hatchlings fledged at the end of April. To keep them safe as they learned to fly we parked outside. Here a baby wren struggles with landing on a recycling bin.
A hatchling about three weeks old lands in a box as he attempts to practice flying.
