Behold The Mighty House Wren

One of the drawbacks of devoting much of the weekend to birding is that you tend to fall behind on certain yardwork. There are a couple of chores in particular that I find especially disagreeable. The first is cleaning my gutters. They get filled up with those little twirly-bird maple seeds that, when saturated in stagnant rain water, makes a particularly nasty organic soup. Another is removing the strangling weeds that wrap their evil vines around the hedges. No matter how cautious I am in approaching this task, I always end up getting a a Poison Ivy rash. It's probably just me. I'm sure for some people this type of yardwork would be their idea of a good time.

This weekend I finally managed to complete these dreaded tasks. As I was working, I noticed the House Wrens were also busy working, singing and gathering food. Somehow, I felt comforted by the fact that I wasn't the only one who had responsibilities to take care of.

These little House Wrens start singing before daybreak and don't stop until after dark. I enjoyed watching them try to fit oversized sticks through the hole in the nestbox. It took them a while to get the hang of it. They are also known to be very aggressive to other birds that try to nest near their territory. They don't have much competition in our yard so that's not really a problem. I found it interesting to read that they add spider eggs to their nests. When the spiders hatch they eat the parasites in the nest and the wrens have an added food source to snack on.

Afterwards, I sat in the shade to watch the birds, butterflies and insects that visited the gardens.

I keep very small gardens so they are easier to maintain. Wrens are supposedly good to have around gardens as they eat some of the insects that might otherwise be damaging to plants. So far, I've sampled some red leaf lettuce and basil. Pretty soon the yellow squash will be ready.

I'm always hearing people talk about honeybees and how important they are. What about bumblebees?



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For the last couple of years there hasn't been many honeybees in our yard (which is kind of concerning). It's the bumblebees that have been doing most of the pollinating.

 

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Behold the mighty House Wren

as it flies from tree to tree

with a bold and bubbly song

that cries out "Look at me"!

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Finding spiders in the hedges

and ants beneath the brier

the skill with which it gathers food

is something to admire

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He perched upon the nestbox

then sneakily flew in

checking briefly on his family

then its off to work again