Tough little birds
May 20, 2024 4:24 AM Subscribe
My deck and nearby yard was aflutter with juvenile Carolina Wrens yesterday! They were trying out their singing voices, playing in the leaf litter, and flying at all sorts of wacky angles and velocities. It was grand!
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:06 AM on May 20 [3 favorites]
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:06 AM on May 20 [3 favorites]
It's the deck nesters!
We currently have a bunch of baby robins in a nest on the lamp right next to our back door. The deck is literally rotting away and we need to demolish it, but we're waiting for them to be done with the nest first.
Mama Robin is often found in the tree right off the deck, looking in the window and scolding us for being too close. Hey lady, we're not the ones who put a nest right there...
In a previous year we had a baby bunny nest in a big flowerpot on our deck that had been allowed to grow wild.
posted by Foosnark at 6:01 AM on May 20 [2 favorites]
We currently have a bunch of baby robins in a nest on the lamp right next to our back door. The deck is literally rotting away and we need to demolish it, but we're waiting for them to be done with the nest first.
Mama Robin is often found in the tree right off the deck, looking in the window and scolding us for being too close. Hey lady, we're not the ones who put a nest right there...
In a previous year we had a baby bunny nest in a big flowerpot on our deck that had been allowed to grow wild.
posted by Foosnark at 6:01 AM on May 20 [2 favorites]
I love these little birds so much that I named my Fantasy Baseball team after them last year (First in my heart, sixth place in the Pony House League. I am not very good at evaluating baseball player's skill).
posted by KingEdRa at 6:18 AM on May 20 [1 favorite]
posted by KingEdRa at 6:18 AM on May 20 [1 favorite]
Reading NASA's "Climate Patterns Thousands of Miles Away Affect US Bird Migration", got lost in Rossby waves
posted by HearHere at 6:59 AM on May 20
posted by HearHere at 6:59 AM on May 20
Cute. I don't know if they have made it to the north side of Lake Ontario. But we do get house wrens, who migrate annually.
posted by Artful Codger at 7:25 AM on May 20
posted by Artful Codger at 7:25 AM on May 20
Yes, Artful Codger, they have. I met a whole bunch of them in Thomson Park in Scarborough in January. Cute little squeakers.
posted by scruss at 7:40 AM on May 20 [2 favorites]
posted by scruss at 7:40 AM on May 20 [2 favorites]
They are SO LOUD. This is the time of year where there is always some asshole bird yelling outside my house, and 2/3 of the time it's a wren.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 8:17 AM on May 20 [1 favorite]
posted by Lawn Beaver at 8:17 AM on May 20 [1 favorite]
adjusted for dimensions, I think Carolina wrens are quieter than Eurasian wrens. They're not called Zaunkönig (king of the fence) in Germany for nothing.
posted by scruss at 8:34 AM on May 20
posted by scruss at 8:34 AM on May 20
Birds expanding their territory isn't always great for other birds. Speculation is that's why the grey-headed chickadee is now endangered.
posted by sardonyx at 9:16 AM on May 20 [1 favorite]
posted by sardonyx at 9:16 AM on May 20 [1 favorite]
If we can train these birds to eat black swallow wort seeds...
posted by ocschwar at 9:43 AM on May 20
posted by ocschwar at 9:43 AM on May 20
It's really important to not give Joe Biden the credit for any of the legislation that's passed recently, and to chalk it all down to changing trends in Washington. While also admitting that probably under Trump those same trends would no longer apply.
posted by subdee at 9:45 AM on May 20 [1 favorite]
posted by subdee at 9:45 AM on May 20 [1 favorite]
Oh, Lord. I have Carolina wrens. I know them intimately.
My "office" is a small shack that I built out of reclaimed construction materials I discovered in little caches squirrelled away within the outbuildings on the homestead.
We purchased this place three years ago.
I have no idea whether we are the fifth or sixth owners. I built my shack in protest, as my spouse colonized the well-appointed home office that came with the place. In any case, it is a fine shack, roughly 100 square feet, built on a platform, nestled amidst the cherry trees. It has two large windows and many bookshelves and a desk for my computer. It has electricity and high-speed internet.
My mother helped me with the siding. "Some day," she said, "they'll put this on display at the FBI museum. My boy's shack."
I do write manifestos in my shack. I don't send them anywhere. I harbor no ill-will toward the technocratic elites.
The shack is hot in the summer and cold in the winter. Last summer I opened one of the windows a few inches.
I left it open when we traveled for a week. After this, whenever I entered the shack I was accosted by a ferocious little bird. A terror. Loud - irritatingly so. I couldn't concentrate.
It was a Carolina wren.
I thought he wanted to fight his reflection. I watched from the house, once, as he popped through the cracked window.
I returned to my shack and I found his nest. I had piled a bunch of Vietnam-era war memorabilia on top of one of the book shelves. The damned birds had built a nest inside my dead father's overturned officer service cap.
Standing on my desk chair, I noted the female wren had four eggs.
I googled "how long does it take carolina wren eggs to hatch"
I gave them my office for three weeks, until the little babes vacated and the parents were empty-nesters and I dumped out the nest and closed the window. I learned a lot about Carolina wrens.
And now, my God, kyrie eleison, two weeks ago. I was sharpening the chains for my new Stihl saw in the barn. I heard a familiar grating howl from the pines outside. "You've got to be fucking kidding me," I thought. I stepped out of the barn and there he was, that same stupid little bird. This time they built a nest in the bucket where I store my oily rags. Right there on the wall beside my workbench. Four eggs. Another two weeks to go until they're out. I know there is a whole case of plastic cable ties and a pair of nice, hydrahyde work gloves under that nest.
I am surrounded by trees. Endless branches and massive trees of every description and these birds... they are compelled to nest where I work. And then yell at me. My chickens don't even harass me to this degree.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 10:13 AM on May 20 [15 favorites]
My "office" is a small shack that I built out of reclaimed construction materials I discovered in little caches squirrelled away within the outbuildings on the homestead.
We purchased this place three years ago.
I have no idea whether we are the fifth or sixth owners. I built my shack in protest, as my spouse colonized the well-appointed home office that came with the place. In any case, it is a fine shack, roughly 100 square feet, built on a platform, nestled amidst the cherry trees. It has two large windows and many bookshelves and a desk for my computer. It has electricity and high-speed internet.
My mother helped me with the siding. "Some day," she said, "they'll put this on display at the FBI museum. My boy's shack."
I do write manifestos in my shack. I don't send them anywhere. I harbor no ill-will toward the technocratic elites.
The shack is hot in the summer and cold in the winter. Last summer I opened one of the windows a few inches.
I left it open when we traveled for a week. After this, whenever I entered the shack I was accosted by a ferocious little bird. A terror. Loud - irritatingly so. I couldn't concentrate.
It was a Carolina wren.
I thought he wanted to fight his reflection. I watched from the house, once, as he popped through the cracked window.
I returned to my shack and I found his nest. I had piled a bunch of Vietnam-era war memorabilia on top of one of the book shelves. The damned birds had built a nest inside my dead father's overturned officer service cap.
Standing on my desk chair, I noted the female wren had four eggs.
I googled "how long does it take carolina wren eggs to hatch"
I gave them my office for three weeks, until the little babes vacated and the parents were empty-nesters and I dumped out the nest and closed the window. I learned a lot about Carolina wrens.
And now, my God, kyrie eleison, two weeks ago. I was sharpening the chains for my new Stihl saw in the barn. I heard a familiar grating howl from the pines outside. "You've got to be fucking kidding me," I thought. I stepped out of the barn and there he was, that same stupid little bird. This time they built a nest in the bucket where I store my oily rags. Right there on the wall beside my workbench. Four eggs. Another two weeks to go until they're out. I know there is a whole case of plastic cable ties and a pair of nice, hydrahyde work gloves under that nest.
I am surrounded by trees. Endless branches and massive trees of every description and these birds... they are compelled to nest where I work. And then yell at me. My chickens don't even harass me to this degree.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 10:13 AM on May 20 [15 favorites]
Oh yeah, my deck family is loud at me, too. I think the parents are hoping I'll chase them and leave my deck forever.
To be fair, Baby_Balrog, you're not preferring to live outside in the trees, either.
Maybe we should build something intended for wren living, so they'll leave the rest for us?
posted by amtho at 12:03 PM on May 20 [2 favorites]
To be fair, Baby_Balrog, you're not preferring to live outside in the trees, either.
Maybe we should build something intended for wren living, so they'll leave the rest for us?
posted by amtho at 12:03 PM on May 20 [2 favorites]
That is one fine shed, Baby_Balrog. One mighty fine shed.
posted by Floydd at 3:21 PM on May 20 [2 favorites]
posted by Floydd at 3:21 PM on May 20 [2 favorites]
Wrens nest in my greenhouse and then can't find the way out and attack me. Thanks, wrens.
posted by acrasis at 4:28 PM on May 20 [1 favorite]
posted by acrasis at 4:28 PM on May 20 [1 favorite]
One of these built a nest and raised (I think successfully) a chick in a potted plant literally 2ft and eye level out my front door. Took a week to figure out I didn't need to be quiet or sneak out to not disturb them...they didn't much care what I did.
posted by kjs3 at 1:50 PM on May 21
posted by kjs3 at 1:50 PM on May 21
Carolina Wrens are my most FAVORITE birdie! I love how they bop up and down when looking around and that their tails point up and not down. So bubbly. I've been lucky that over the past years some have raised babies in my bird house. Much love to the Carolina wren.
posted by Saucywench at 2:37 PM on May 21 [1 favorite]
posted by Saucywench at 2:37 PM on May 21 [1 favorite]
When I was a little, we had a German shepherd, and the wrens loved to use her shed fur in nests. Their favorite nest location was always the newspaper box. My parents no longer live in the same house or the same town, but every year at their new house, the wrens build a nest in in the newspaper box (which is now inactive since the Charlotte Observer barely has a print edition anymore).
posted by hydropsyche at 4:59 PM on May 21
posted by hydropsyche at 4:59 PM on May 21
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They are also most likely to be hopping around the front porch as babies.
In short, hey friends, good to see you. Again.
posted by amtho at 4:36 AM on May 20 [9 favorites]