Gail Compton: Carolina wrens quirky nesters

Carolina Wrens (Thryothorus ludovicianus) seem attracted to human dwellings. Your yard and porches provide wren edibles, including spiders, beetles, grasshoppers, crickets, ants, small bees, wasps, millipedes, sowbugs, moths and snails.

One quirky habit that amuses and surprises is Carolina Wrens pick some unlikely places to build their nests: an old bucket turned on its side, a hanging planter or a bicycle helmet left out on a porch, an old shoe forgotten in a shed, a mailbox. One season, my resident pair announced they were ready to settle down and begin their first nest of the spring.

Research has shown that Carolina wrens often pair for life. This male announced the nesting cycle by singing his wichity-wichity-wichity song to let the female know he had nest sites to show. I watched as he began exploring a corner of my porch. First, he brought three leaves and placed them on a shelf, then called until the female appeared from neighboring shrubs.

After hopping about and trying out the nest site, the female declared her rejection by simply leaving. The patient male showed his mate two more offerings. She rejected both. Suddenly, the male perched on a loosely woven grapevine basket I had hung high on the porch wall. The female again appeared and explored the basket inside and out. Then they both disappeared and returned several minutes later to began tucking materials into the basket. For three years I cleaned out the old nest and each year they returned to the same basket, rebuilt the nest and raised their young where I could pull up a chair and watch.

Dont panic if you find a wren nest with one or two eggs in it and no wrens tending the nest. The female comes to the nest once a day to lay one egg and wont begin incubating until shes laid four to five eggs. When she begins incubating, expect eggs to hatch in 12 to 14 days. Once chicks hatch, both parents collect insects for the developing chicks until they fledge, usually in 10 to 14 days. The parents then call from nearby shrubs and undergrowth to encourage the chicks to flutter-fly and begin their initiation into wren adulthood. The whole family stays in touch with soft contact calls, so even when you cant see them, you know where they are. Carolina Wrens prefer to hunt insects in leaf litter and low in thickets or your garden.

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Gail Compton: Carolina wrens quirky nesters