House Wrens and a Sea of Green

With the exception of the viburnum, whose flower heads went from greenish yellow to bright white and have now faded before they will eventually produce red berries, all the trees and shrubs in my garden have lost their flowers. No more pink flowers on the dogwood or white blossoms on the apple and pear trees or yellow on the forsythia. The rhododendron and azalea flowers have shriveled and fallen. The irises have finished their bloom and so has the peony.

Viburnum flowers (Margo D. Beller)

Other perennials are now growing and will soon flower. The weeds are way ahead of them and I've already made several long, painful attempts to contain the spread by pulling what I can reach over, under and behind the deer fencing. 

For the most part my yard is a sea of green except where the clover is showing its white flowers in the grass. In the midst of this green sits the house wren nest box.

At this time of year what birds I find in my usual places have ended their migrations to nest and breed. Many of them now have young that need feeding. I hear the young birds calling for food and I see their parents zipping around, gleaning insects from tree leaves. The tree foliage is so thick now I can't see the birds well up there, I can only hear them unless they happen to come lower to hunt on the ground.

The house wrens living in my yard also have young. I estimate they have at least two, maybe three. I'm not sure when exactly the eggs hatched but Mom was in the box a lot at first and now both parents are flying back and forth from the box to remove waste and bring food. Last week the young were small enough for both parents to go inside the box at the same time but usually it is just Mom who goes in. If Dad brings food while she is in the box he gives it to her to give the young.

(I am not humanizing these birds, but it is easier to call them Mom and Dad than to keep saying "the female house wren," etc.)

This year's male house wren. (Margo D. Beller)

After Dad has delivered the food to the nest he sometimes goes to a higher branch in the dogwood and flutters. Then he sings. I don't know what the fluttering means. The singing is the only way I can tell male from female.

Soon the young will get so big both parents will feed them from outside the box, except when Mom squeezes inside to get the waste matter. Eventually, the chicks will be induced to leave the nest and try flying to their parents. With luck they'll make it to the safety of the thick shrubbery across from the box and eventually learn to feed themselves. Then the family will disperse.

Always, there are dangers.

So far this year I have shooed away house sparrows trying to reach into the box to destroy the eggs and take the nest for themselves. They are bigger than wrens so I knew they couldn't get past the small opening on the box to destroy any eggs. Still, I ran them off. I have also run off squirrels several times in the last week because I don't know if they are climbing the dogwood to find insects in the leaves or any fruits being formed or to grab a wren chick.

Until yesterday what I thought was the most horrifying attack I've seen on the nest box - and who knows how many I have missed - was the male red-bellied woodpecker that flew to the box and then stuck its long bill, and longer tongue, inside. At that point there were only eggs. I chased the bird off and later learned from an article that many types of woodpeckers, including the red-belly, eat baby bird brains. I can no longer hear a red-belly in my yard without apprehension.

But worse than that attack was the Cooper's hawk.

Another immature Cooper's hawk atop another feeder pole.
(Margo D. Beller)

Sitting on my enclosed porch with my coffee early in the morning, trying to wake up, I was horrified to see a hawk fly at the nest box as the parents were shuttling back and forth to feed their young. Based on the size I thought, "Cooper's hawk." After hitting the box it flew back to the nearby privet shrub. I ran out clapping my hands to scare it off. When it flew I realized the bird's wings were brown - an immature bird. (Adults have gray wings.)

As I stood near the dogwood after the hawk flew off I heard the cheeping of the wren young.

I went back to the porch and waited for at least one parent to return. After what seemed an eternity, Mom returned and zipped into the box, then left to get more grub. I did not hear the male. It will be much more difficult to feed all those young with only one parent, I thought. That happened several years ago when the male disappeared, the female did all the feeding and then a new male appeared to help her.

(Margo D. Beller)

I went out for a while to do some birding, not wanting to know if the juvenile Cooper's had succeeded in grabbing a meal. (Adult birds are usually much more successful than juveniles that are still learning to hunt.)

When I returned from my time away I went back to the porch, this time with my breakfast. And then I heard Dad. Then I saw Dad and Mom shuttling to the nest box to feed their young. 

The Cooper's had missed. It was as though the attack had never happened. 

This is what life is like for a bird - you migrate, you pick a territory, you find a mate and raise young. If you are lucky they will live to feed themselves, migrate, then come back next year - perhaps to the box I hang in the dogwood - and do it all over again. If a chick trying to fly falls to the ground a jay may grab it for a meal, as I've seen happen. The parents continue feeding what young remain. Do they mourn the loss? Mourning is a human concept. 

Life and death are everyday occurrences in nature. There is very little I can do, but I try to keep the cycle going in my yard.

For now I'm watching the nest box like a hawk.