Photo by Heather Simon
A Carolina Wren, distinguished from the House Wren by its distinct eyebrow stripe.
I have a friend who, on occasion, refers to me as a troglodyte. I figure it is a term of endearment and, yes, I can be a bit of a cave dweller and have trouble keeping up with the times. But I am not alone and as I wander out back, I am seeking out the bird version of troglodytes hoping they have arrived to make their nests and raise their offspring as they have been doing for generations. I refer to our wrens, named troglodytes by their desire to forage in dark crevices. The ones on our back forty are perky little birds, mostly brown with an upright tail and a real attitude. I hardly ever catch them in dark crevices but who am I to question the reasoning behind their scientific names.
In the past year, we were lucky enough to have two varieties of wrens residing on our little patch of earth. A House Wren eyed one of our bluebird houses and got right to work. This small brown bird with an erect tail commuted back and forth to the hedgerow accumulating an impressive mound of sticks to fill the house nearly to the tip top and constructed a small nest upon the heap. And then it was time to sing and sing, as that’s how the males defend their territories. Surely we humans could take a page out of their book! These diminutive birds have been known to remove the nest of another bird, and are not beyond poking a hole in an intruder’s egg, but their perkiness allows one to forget these minor character flaws. Being overly ambitious is something I am not familiar with, but the wren tried to model this as he also filled two more bird houses with a huge stockpile of sticks. I read that they make these dummy nests to discourage competition. It worked for the House Wren, who normally lays 5-8 speckled eggs in each clutch. The pair successfully raised a brood who fledged in a couple of weeks and might just be scoping out new territory up the street this spring.
We also had a Carolina Wren, slightly larger with a curved beak and eye stripe. He and his mate were drawn to the claptrap in our garage. They decided to nest in a canvas bag that we had hanging on a hook. They were industrious, filling the bag with grasses and natural material, then building a cone shaped nest. They called around the clock and our hearts swelled. We decided to banish our cars from the garage to dedicate the entire space to their love nest. That we did and before we knew it they had a whole family of perky offspring clamoring for food. Weeks passed and they fledged, and we felt sad to not be a part of their lives.
So with each warm day we wait, hoping some wrens will find our place appealing. And, if our troglodytes don’t take up residence we will be crestfallen. In order to recover from such a setback, we might sashay down to Bradley and book a flight on Aer Lingus to Ireland where they celebrate a Wren Festival once a year. It’s worth a trip across the pond, I hear. And further proves that Europe has a handle on all the cool holidays.