Every summer, we are surrounded by wrens. When we sit on our back deck, the loud call of the Carolina Wren serenades us. It’s a tiny bird that stays back in the woods and vines. It’s hard to spot. It’s surprising how such a smidgen of a bird can sing at high volume.
Different Wrens
Most of our wrens are more common House Wrens. Where Carolina Wrens stay away from our deck, House Wrens love living and nesting close to us. They’re easy to see and observe. Serious birders aren’t crazy about them because they sometimes take over the nests or destroy eggs of other native species, but we like them.
Our wrens winter down south toward the Gulf of Mexico. We look forward to their arrival in mid-April, just when our winter juncos head north. It’s like the changing of the guard. The switch happens again each fall when wrens leave as juncos arrive in October.
Early each April, we set up several wren houses near our house. They’re easy to make from scrap wood. An entrance hole of 7/8ths or 1 inch lets tiny wrens in while barring larger House Sparrows.
Industrious Birds
When wrens first arrive, we hear their near-constant chatter coming from the woods, but by early May, they’ve moved close to the house and start housekeeping. The male brings sticks into the nest box. Sometimes his stick is too long to fit into the small hole, but eventually he figures it out and pokes it through from the end. The female lines the nest with feathers and whatever soft items she can find. Soon she’ll sit on three or four reddish spotted eggs that hatch in about two weeks. Then we enjoy seeing a constant stream of wren parents bringing tasty and nutritious bugs to their nest to feed the kids.
Within two weeks, they fledge. We clean the old nest out of the box, and often a wren couple nests in mid-summer.
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- Lined nest with feathers
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- Curious
Diet
Nearby foraging
Our wrens forage for insects mostly at the edge of the woods and in our prairies. Unlike mowed lawns, these areas have plenty of insects. The industrious birds also forage for insects in our garden. We never need chemical pesticides thanks to our friendly wrens.
House Wrens also forage on pollinators, but somehow all our fruit trees and vegetables get pollinated.
To learn more about nearly any bird species, visit the Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology’s website, All About Birds. The site contains photos, recorded sounds, and videos of hundreds of birds.
Few animals are as animated, ambitious, and noisy as House Wrens. We enjoy them for about half of every year.
