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Ren's wrens
Jun. 7th, 2006 12:01 amBesides the loose parakeet I've been tailing, we've been watching a pair of house wrens that made a nest in a cardboard box on top of a large tool chest my dad has on our back porch. Not the safest place, but they're doing well; the eggs hatched recently and the parents have been hopping back and forth from the nest, hunting for grasshoppers and other bugs to feed to the three or four chicks my dad spotted, deep inside the ball of leaves and twigs and grass the two little darlings built. They're fun to see perched on the porch railings, or on the tip of a car molding that's sticking out from under the box; they seem to think it's a perfect wren roost!
They're the cutest little things; at first glance, they look like sparrows, but they hold their tails almost straight up and down, which gives them this perky, pert look. Plus they've got that white stripe across their heads, which my dad says, "Makes them look like some kind of a chipmunk-bird." And they've got these cute, feisty personalities: I'll be passing through, on my way to the mailbox or to work, and they'll hop up into the trees and scold at me, making this cute little "Ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee! Err-err-err-err-err-err-err!" noise that I've learned to mimic, to their annoyance. I just scold back at them, which ticks them off royally.
Mind you, this is the most recent of three or four generations of wren families we've had build a nest on our porch. Usually, they take up residence in a hanging plant, but my dad was a bit late getting a plant for the porch, so the newest renters seem to have done the resourceful thing and found the next best subsitute they could find. I like to think that a now-grown bird from the previous clutch comes back every year and tells their mate about this lovely sheltered nook that's just right to build a nest, how their parents built their nest at that spot, and about that crazy human with the shiny things over her eyes, who'd always be chattering back at Mom and Dad when they'd squawk at her for getting too close to the nest.
They're the cutest little things; at first glance, they look like sparrows, but they hold their tails almost straight up and down, which gives them this perky, pert look. Plus they've got that white stripe across their heads, which my dad says, "Makes them look like some kind of a chipmunk-bird." And they've got these cute, feisty personalities: I'll be passing through, on my way to the mailbox or to work, and they'll hop up into the trees and scold at me, making this cute little "Ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee! Err-err-err-err-err-err-err!" noise that I've learned to mimic, to their annoyance. I just scold back at them, which ticks them off royally.
Mind you, this is the most recent of three or four generations of wren families we've had build a nest on our porch. Usually, they take up residence in a hanging plant, but my dad was a bit late getting a plant for the porch, so the newest renters seem to have done the resourceful thing and found the next best subsitute they could find. I like to think that a now-grown bird from the previous clutch comes back every year and tells their mate about this lovely sheltered nook that's just right to build a nest, how their parents built their nest at that spot, and about that crazy human with the shiny things over her eyes, who'd always be chattering back at Mom and Dad when they'd squawk at her for getting too close to the nest.
