My Carolina Wren

Sometimes life just hands me a gift. It's not that I've been particularly good or kind recently, but somehow God in all His infinite Wisdom lets me have something that He knows I'll cherish . . . in spite of my myriad of not-so-stellar ways.

The most recent gift is a little bird. After a weekend away from home we returned to find a small brown bird with white eye stripes in my gardening basket. At first I thought it was a sparrow. We have such an abundance of sparrows around here that it was a natural conclusion. However, as I watched her I soon realized this was no sparrow. My first clue was that this bird built a burrow-type nest under a pair of work gloves that I had tossed in the top of the basket. Sparrows don't build burrow nests . . . but wrens do. We had a Carolina Wren gracing our carport.

Her nest is under this dirty white glove -- right next to my trowel.

The first day we saw her nest there was one brown speckled egg. The next day there were two and the following day brought a total of four.

It's really hard to see what's going on here, but in the midst of the grass and stuff of her nest (about mid-photo) , you can barely see two of the four brown eggs.






One of the things I like about the wren is the way she holds her tail. Unlike the sparrow, the wren holds her tail upright -- like a little brown flag. It makes her look so cheerful and perky. Another difference between sparrow and wren is that the sparrow has a short thick beak while the wren has a long, pointed, thin beak.

I've so enjoyed watching her sit upon her eggs, fly from the nest to eat, and occasionally bring a bug or worm back to the nest from the lawn. My favorite time is when my little wren leaves her nest and perches on our carport railing and sings. She has a lovely loud triplet of a song which she repeats several times. This morning I sat on the carport in a lawn chair with my morning tea and listened to her sing. She clung sideways to the brick of our house and sang her heart out -- defying gravity as easy a pie.

The incubation period for a wren is 12 -16 days. Then, within two weeks of hatching, the chicks should fledge. That's another thing that's been cool about this. I've heard the term "fledgling" many times, but I never knew that "fledge" was a word (a verb actually).

I can't tell this story without giving the human element because that is precious, too. When I found we had a nesting wren on the carport, I put a line of lawn chairs across the carport entrance with a sign that says "Keep back. Bird nesting. Use front door." My husband, Bryan, looked at that sign and said, "Really? I can't park on the carport because of a bird?" But, true to his sweet nature, he gave way and let me have my desire to protect the new mommy. The only murmur of discontent was the question, "So, how long is this going to last?" That's how I came to find out about incubation periods and fledge expectations.

We're about 9 days in to the incubation period, I think. I peek into the basket each day to see what I can see. Most of the time I see her long sharp beak sticking out, but sometimes she has her head turned and I see a black shiny eye staring at me. It seems that no matter how quietly and slowly I move, she always knows that I'm there. So far she allows me to look and it doesn't seem to bother her. Twice I've hand delivered bread crumbs to the nest. Within minutes she has them gobbled up. I think she knows I mean no harm and want only to watch her miracle in progress.

So, the amazing show continues . . . I'll keep you posted -- or blogged in this case.

hc