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Well, I was working on a nice little post about the wrens. They had taken up residence in their nest in the rag bag in my garage. (We don't park the truck in the garage as it is part of our studio space.) Yesterday when we left to run some errands, one of them flew out as we exited from the house. It was still gone when we got back so I took the opportunity to peek inside and deep in the nest was a little egg. I could only see one but there were probably more. This morning when I got up I peered out the door at the rag bag to see if she was sitting in the nest. I thought I saw her but my eyes were still groggy from a deep sleep and weird dream so I looked a little more intently which was too much for her and she flew out and across the garage to rest on the shelves over there. OK. Sorry little wren, didn't mean to freak you out. I'd been keeping the door to the garage closed and going out by the back door instead. I know she was still sitting on her eggs by this afternoon because one of the times Marc came in he remarked about it being hard to sit on her eggs if she was going to fly off every time someone passed by.
I just came in through the garage and I saw on the floor one of her eggs and another that was smushed. I'm thinking Marc may have stepped on it without noticing. I picked up the one egg and it has a hole in it.
She's not in her nest so I took a close look and there is still one egg left. I have no idea if the little wren will come back and no idea what happened. The nest is still intact so something did not get in there because I would expect it to be all torn up. She wouldn't have carried her eggs out and dropped them because of all the coming and going would she? It's not like they didn't know there was a lot of activity around the door.
They are such funny little creatures.
Last week a little wren flew into the kitchen and landed on my tea kettle handle! (Our old crank out kitchen windows don't have screens.) She looked around a bit and flew back out.
ReplyDeleteMystery- what a sweet little egg.
ReplyDeleteSuch a perfect jewel of a post. Some people just seem to have the loveliest affinity with birds. Like you. Wish I did too!
ReplyDeleteHow strange - I hope she comes back. I wonder how the eggs got out of the nest. Cat? Weasel?
ReplyDeleteHmmm! 'Tis a mystery for sure. How the heck did those eggs fall out? And how sad for Mrs. Wren.
ReplyDeleteHugs
SueAnn
It's such a sad story, but I think animals are much more practical about these things than we are.
ReplyDeleteWhen my roommates built the porch, a robin built her nest on top of one of the not yet installed columns. John very carefully moved the next to another location but the bird came back and rebuilt a new nest on the column. John tried to work around it. The noise so freaked her out that she abandoned the eggs. When he finally removed the next, the eggs had rotted.
Such a sad story; it makes my heart jump into my throat. Your story, too.
A sensitive account of one of life's small creatures. I enjoyed both your writing and your photography.
ReplyDeleteHopefully it wasn't sparrows being predators.
ReplyDeleteBird's reactions are generally flight before fight; they'll always live to do whatever another day.
Hopefully, she returns.
I got curious and Googled for information. I'd say the following quote from http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/House_Wren/lifehistory sounds logical.
ReplyDelete" Male House Wrens start building several nests at once in hopes of persuading a female to mate with him. Pairs typically break up by the end of each nesting season and choose new partners the next year. House Wrens are aggressive. Single males sometimes compete for females even after a pair has begun nesting. In about half of these contests the outsider succeeds in displacing his rival, at which point he usually discards any existing eggs or nestlings and begins a new family with the female."