The Dangers of Youth

"The energy of youth is infectious, but its inexperience is dangerous."

-- Charles de Gaulle

As every parent knows, there are many dangers out there. You give birth, you feed your young, you keep them clean and you try to protect them from predators as best you can. But in the end there is only so much you can do to prepare them for leaving the nest. The young will have to learn to fend for themselves and, with luck, survive to create a new generation.

This is true for all creatures, including birds.

Parent feeding young (This and other pictures from 2020.)
(Margo D. Beller)

The other day, from my porch, I saw two male house sparrows attacking the house wren nest box hanging in my dogwood tree. Had the opening been large enough, one or the other would've gone in, dragged out the wrenlets, killed them and taken over the box. Why there were two males instead of a male and a female, as I saw a few weeks ago, I don't know.

But there they were, so here I went outside to clap my hands to chase them off. When they were gone I heard an angry chittering from the box and then one of the parent house wrens flew out - it had blocked the opening to protect its young. "You're welcome," I said as I walked away. Soon the parents went back to shuttling food to their young.

I did not immediately go back on the porch. I walked to the driveway because I heard the high-pitched screaming of a robin and I sensed something was wrong. Two birds were going at it across the street, or so I thought. I've seen robins fighting each other before in territorial disputes but this turned out to be different.

One of the birds, a young robin (the breast spotted rather than red), flew across the street to the bottom of my yew hedge and hid under one of the small, bare branches near the ground that stick out and prevent me from weeding in that area. The other bird flew at it and I knew by the fanned, striped tail it was no robin but a similarly sized male sharp-shinned hawk. It must've seen me standing there because after the one attempt it took off. Then the chickadees and titmice in the neighbor's walnut tree started their alarm calls. I walked around the hedge and there was the hawk. It was a brown juvenile. Had it been a gray adult that young robin would've been supper. I clapped my hands, the hawk flew off and the little birds went quiet.

(Margo D. Beller)

Hawks have to eat, too, I know, but not in my yard.

Which brings me back to the house wrens.

For the first time since I started writing about the house wren nest box (in 2011; unfortunately, the link no longer works), I happened to be on the porch and saw the young fledge.

I knew that time was coming soon. The young birds had gotten so big they were being fed by the parents from outside the box. It must've been very crowded and uncomfortable in that box, especially when the temperature soared into the upper 80 degrees F to 90 degrees this week. A parent would occasionally push the young aside to go inside the box to remove poop. When an adult was near I could hear the young begging for food. Lately, the head of a curious wrenlet had been coming partway through the box opening.

I watched this last part with trepidation. Years ago, when the nest box was in the apple tree, a wrenlet fell out of the box and was snatched up by a jay before I could get outside to rescue it. Jays, like their cousins the corvids (including crows and ravens) are among those that will eat young birds. So will squirrels, one of which I saw being harried all over the yard by an angry house wren parent.

So when I saw the little head looking so far out of the box I was concerned, especially when a male sparrow flew to the dogwood. 

I walked to the window and rapped on it. The house sparrow left. That was when I saw that along with the house wren looking out was another small house wren on top of the nest box.

Close to leaving.
(Margo D. Beller)

I had no camera with me. The best I could do was take a picture with my phone from the porch. (It was easier photographing the nest box from outside when it was in the apple tree, and the pictures for this post are from 2020, before I moved the box.) I wouldn't have dared missing anything for a camera anyway.

The first wrenlet flew to a higher branch of the dogwood. The second got closer and closer to leaving the box. A parent came to feed it, then the adult flew to base of the bushes on the other side of the flood wall. I could hear the male parent calling to the young. Finally, the second wrenlet left the box and jumped to a side branch, where it did a little climbing and pecked at leaves. It stumbled a bit but did not fall.

Then, a third head poked out of the box. 

One by one its siblings flew from the dogwood down behind the flood wall, where I'm sure at least one of the parents was waiting. The third one didn't bother jumping to a branch, it flew directly to where the others had gone. No doubt it was hungry and the male's calls told the three they had to fly out if they wanted to be fed.

Now the box is quiet, unless there is a second brood later in the summer. 

The wrens aren't the only young in the yard, of course. I've seen a male cardinal fly to the feeder pole with one of its young, which was the same size and brown like a female but without the red crest and beak. The scared chickadees and titmice were the first indication there were families in the vicinity of my yard since I stopped putting out bird food. 

Not the greatest picture but if you look close
you'll see one wren in the opening and
another atop the box. 2025
(Margo D. Beller)

And, of course, there are young deer. Earlier this week a doe was in the next yard with a tiny fawn drinking her milk. When the doe saw me standing in my yard and looking at them she led the tiny fawn away. For now my yard is safe from curious young nibbling at my plants, learning what tastes good.

Like the fawn, the young birds will be fed by their parents for a time and then will have to fend for themselves. Some, like the juvenile hawk, will need a lot of practice grabbing supper. Others, like the wrens, will be helping my yard by catching a ton of insects. But the young birds will also learn they must avoid predators to survive, and that includes other birds, cats, dogs and humans. 

They will travel with their parents for a time but eventually they will be on their own.