Wren Update! Parts 1 and 2

MrrrrR,

As I blog, the 2 baby wrens are considering fledging. The adult female seems to be encouraging them occasionally by coming to the nest box without food. I've also seen her with food on some of these visits making sure, I guess, they are staying fed up. She has been visiting with increasing frequency throughout the morning.

The young fledglings are vocalizing a great deal and coming to the box opening - here's a picure of the larger of the two.

They are about the size of their parents at this point. We assume they are 10 to 12 days old based on assumed hatch date.

I guess this means they'll be out of the box today. Unfortunately, a large storm is forecast for this afternoon and evening. I am worried about them being out and perhaps on the ground during this...then again, perhaps the parents sense this and are hoping to get them tucked securely on a branch against a tree trunk for the evening?

We can only speculate at this point. We'll update you when we have more news.

UPDATE
Wow, that was intense!

In about a 2 hour period, our parent wrens successfully moved their 4 fledglings to an undisclosed safe zone in the holly tree and/or the bush below it.

Yes, 4! Boy did we not think there were that many...there are supposed to be clutches of this size or greater but we just assumed we had 2 until they started lining up to come out of the house.

It seemed perfectly orchestrated by the parents. One at a time, after the mom came to the house, the fledglings made their first flight from the opening of the nest box to the Japanese cherry tree 10 feet away.

Fledgling1 – likely the dude in the photo above – made it into the foliage about 7 feet high. We then lost track of him until we saw him scuttling across the roof of the garage to take off for a short hopper flight smack into the holly tree.

Just then, F2 hurtled out of the nest box and into the cherry tree at about 5 feet height. We lost track of her right away...must of scurried up the branches and headed out.

F3, a little pugnacious guy, arched out of the nest box about 10 minutes later. He didn’t do so good, landing at the base of the designated cherry tree. But within about 2 seconds, he was clambering up the trunk, stopping only to get directions from mom over in the cedar tree. Here’s a couple pictures of the little guy.

After his photo op, F3 jagged over to the cedar tree on a low flight path hitting the wood pile. (The garage where the nest box hangs, the cherry tree, and the cedar tree are at the points of a rough triangle of space, each about 8 to 10 feet from the other; the 20 foot diameter holly tree is on the other side of the garage from where the nest box hangs, furthest from the cherry.) From the wood pile he flew into the bushes below the holly. From there we lost sight of him.

F4, the baby, was left, but not for long. We didn’t see F4 take off, but it must have went well because she was gone in a flash and the parents were shuffling little ones from the cedar into the holly/bush area.

Amazing and very efficient. I couldn’t imagine my mom getting us kittens to get in line and behave so well for much of anything. These wrens have the survival thing down. I am glad we could help by putting a nice home for them away from streets and pretty much away from dogs and other intruders. Fric and Frac can always be a problem, but at this point the fledglings have good flight skills at about 12 feet. In hours they’ll be even better. In a week or two, they’ll be almost as adept as their parents who will continue to defend and feed them through most of this period.

I wish them luck. My female person and I will keep an eye for them and update you if we have news. We’re assuming (based on my person’s experience with wrens) they’ll find a sturdy, safe, crow-free zone to spend the day and feed up as much as possible. After that, their lives will become largely secret in terms of how much we’ll know. I sure hope though, that we see them next year when they’re all grown up.

Turtles Too

Mrrrr Friends,

Eastern Box Turtles seem to be trundling about more than usual.

I met a small fellow just the other day who seems to have taken up residence under the wren box next to the garage. I was very intrigued, walked up to him, noting his bright orange eyes and slightly convex bottom plate, and introduced myself, but he turned around and walked away. Given the angle of the light, I suppose he could have confused me with a dog. It upset me a bit, but I understood the little guy’s fear.

Dogs are sometimes guilty of picking up box turtles and carrying them out of their home range. Usually they don’t end up harming them, but since turtles always try to go home, they often make a turtle’s life pretty difficult.

Of course, people are harder on box turtles. Many turtles meet their end on a road, hit by a car – the most frequent reason all sorts of wild things are brought to wildlife rehabilitators. And then there is the ill-conceived notion that a turtle makes a good pet.

Remember, people, that if you remove or relocate a healthy box turtle found crossing the road, you may be separating it from its territory. It will likely make heroic efforts to return to its home turf. Some studies indicate that if a box turtle is released more than a half-mile from its territory, it may never find its way home–but it may spend five years searching for it.

Best bet, if you see a box turtle on the road…resist any temptation to think it will make a good pet; help it across, following its trajectory and perhaps watching to see that it makes it to safe ground. Then go away!

Cats indoors, turtles outdoors!

Baby Bird Central

Mrrrr Friends,

Wow, I’ve been busy.

There’s been no time for blogging with new visitors everywhere. And it’s hard to get inspiration to blog when you can’t go cat around in your own backyard without getting “lip” from flickers, chatter from wrens, wails from robins, and a host of complaints from titmice, grackles, and, always, catbirds.

I’m thrilled they are all having a successful breeding season, but I’m not going to eat baby birds…really, it is my honest intention not to eat them…maybe just a sniff and a lick?

Not that I’d have a chance because my person is accompanying me everywhere when I do get to go out during fledgling season.

Our House Wrens have about three babies, we think – maybe a week from fledging. They seem quite happy thus far. Their little house never gets too much direct sun and is well protected from storm winds. A brief, sunny warm-up in the morning, then a nice rocking breeze through the afternoon. We are looking forward to seeing them.

We already have a successful backyard robin nest. Here’s a picture of the youngster we saw up in our cedar tree. I am sad to report that the three eggs in our front yard nest were robbed one night a couple weeks ago. Likely it was a squirrel. Alex isn’t too fond of squirrels and likes to chase them.

The grackles also have children running about but no sign yet of catbird or flicker babies (woodpecker babies are just so cute…their little tongues are quite cool). And you never know with titmice…they are so quiet and secretive.

Here’s a backyard catbird scolding me. The front yard catbird’s a bit more chill…

No sign of the Baltimore Orioles. We hear them every so often, and we know there must be a nest somewhere down by the little beach, but we don’t know where the family from the recently felled Black Cherry relocated.

Oh, and we have Wisconsin prairie flowers coming right up where Alex can see them – she loves a good prairie garden.

Happy solstice!

More on new visitors soon…

New Tenants

We have tenants in our wren house.

Here’s a picture of the male wren. There is a female too, but she gets very shy when there are people around. Last week they were both taking small twigs from the cedar tree and adding them to the twigs already in the wren house.

House Wrens (Troglodytes aedon) like these two will often make a “false nest” or two, but it is usually just the male. He’s covering his bets but also trying to shake off any cowbirds or competitor species. The fact that they were both adding to the nest box seems a good omen, but you never know with wrens.

Here’s a less-than-perfect video of the male singing above the house. This is territorial behavior, but it’s wonderful to hear. Turn your volume to medium or so; there’s a big boom noise at the end, it isn’t a gun shot but a delivery man in our neighbor’s driveway.

Anyway, I’ll keep you posted on their progress. The chances of fireworks are great…the house is a Carolina Wren house (Thryothorus ludovicianus) and they are bigger and often more assertive than their House Wren cousins. House Wrens, however, are no pushovers.

Check out the links to the two different wren species to the right in my “places to go” tab. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology always has cool bird information and great photos.

Beach Bum

I decided today to give the beach another try. I tried it last autumn and, I gotta tell you, it seems a high-risk situation for a cat. All that water: salty, usually sunny, hot and then there’s the big white gulls with the sharp beaks. I never know whether to trust a gull…

Anyway, I put on my harness and leash, and my person and I headed off down the road. She had to pick me up a couple times because I dislike trucks a great deal. It’s two blocks to the beach…the shorter block can have trucks, but once you get to the long block it’s better.

I am still a bit overwhelmed by the beach. The pebbles are cool, but the water is, well, it’s big…and it’s salty. I’m kind of a fresh water guy, but I’m working on it.

We strolled along the water a bit, but then I headed off to this bucolic spot just on the back side of the beach…a lovely saltwater pond with a Great Egret in it. I needed to go all the way to the edge to prove to myself that it really was salty water. (Black cat + sunny hot beach = thirsty cat.) I got my paws in it…yep, salty.

I’m getting used to it. When you calm down and start sniffing around, it’s a pretty amazing place. There’s so much that I don’t know out there, it’s going to take some exploration. I’m intrigued but cautious.

It was nice to get back and lay in the cool grass under the Sugar Maple.