Tag Carolina Wren

Carolina Wrens with the Wrong Baby

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When you sit in your backyard watching the bird feeders as regularly as I do, occasionally you get lucky and see something really out of the ordinary. I had one such a sighting on a June afternoon. I was reading my book in the yard, keeping an eye on the feeders and my camera on my lap, just in case. I noticed that I had a Carolina Wren on my feeder. While I have had House Wrens and Carolina Wrens in my yard before (just last summer a pair of House Wrens occupied one of my birdhouses) they are still a rare enough visitor to illicit a little extra excitement from me. So I was happily snapping away for quite a while. Long enough to realize that it wasn’t one Carolina Wren visiting my seed feeders, but a pair. They seemed to be visiting the feeder, stocking up and flying off. To feed a baby I assumed, which is a safe guess regarding that type of behavior in June. After a while I thought about the situation in more detail. Wrens had been in my yard before, but never visited the feeder because…suddenly it clicked that they only eat insects. They do not eat seeds or feed them to their nestlings. So what the heck were they doing carting off all my seeds?!

At the rate they kept disappearing and reappearing I decided they couldn’t have been going very far. So I decided to investigate. Very slowly I got up from my chair and slowly skirted my way around the bird feeders, making a very large circle so as not to scare and scatter the other birds eating. From my new vantage point I could see that the Carolina Wrens were landing on a low branch in one of the trees that represents the boundary between our yard and the neighbors’. So very, very slowly and making many long pauses along my way, I slowly advanced toward the branch in question.

Once I made it more or less directly under the tree, the whole picture began to take shape. What I found on the branch was a giant fledgling. Well, giant compared to the Carolina Wrens. It was exhibiting typical fledgling behavior, making lot of noise, moving awkwardly and opening its mouth to indicate that it was hungry. While I was trying to determine exactly what this fledgling was and how it fit into the larger mystery of the Carolina Wrens and my birdseed, one of the wrens landed next to this massive baby and began to feed it the seeds. And it all became clear. Well sort of.

After some research I was able to determine that the fledgling I had seen was a young Brown-headed Cowbird. As I mentioned in my post about them, Brown-headed Cowbirds do not incubate or raise their own chicks. Instead they lay their eggs in the nests of other birds in the hopes that some will survive. Many birds recognize the Cowbird eggs as impostors and either remove the eggs from their nest or destroy the eggs. However, still other species, such as the Wrens that feature in this story, keep the Cowbird eggs and treat the chick as their own.

Of course one could choose to look at this tale with cynicism and negativity. Yes, it is awful to think that the Carolina Wrens eggs likely perished and the pairs was left with this huge demanding impostor. Almost an ugly duckling story, if the ugly duckling had been less sad and much more demanding (which, in reality, as a young swan, he probably would have been). And then there is the obvious question…how dumb are wrens that they think this thing could possibly belong to them? Even as a baby he towered over them both. But what really grabbed at me was that they had figured out to feed him what it was he needed to eat. How many other animals would have realized… “honey he really doesn’t seem into the spiders and the grubs, maybe we should try seeds and see what happens?” How did they know? Instinct? Because if it is instinct, that opens an even greater realm of possibilities. If they have the built in instincts to feed the Cowbird babies, perhaps nature gave them the instincts so that the Cowbirds, rejected from so many nests, would find one species of willing foster parents. So while many bird lovers are bemoaning the fact that the Brown-headed Cowbird kills the eggs of so many different songbird species, maybe they should stop and consider that nature does everything for a reason. The Cowbirds are just as necessary as the Carolina Wrens.

Bird Watching in the Days of Social Distance

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As so many of us are entering into our fourth week of self quarantine because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the struggle to maintain some sense of normality and sanity continues. As many of us work from home, or try to work from home, and so many others are faced with unemployment during the crisis, it is important that we continue to experience the calming effects of nature and the outdoors. And this we can do right in our own backyards and gardens. Just walking outside your door to do some yard work in the sunshine and fresh air can help to ease some of the tension and anxiety, even if just for a short amount of time. You should think of your yard as your sanctuary. This is especially true now that many of the parks in northern New Jersey have been closed to the public. Those of us who are used to traveling to the birds must now be content with seeing only those birds that come to visit us.

March did not come in like a lion this year, but it demonstrated variable and unpredictable tendencies that fluctuated between lion and lamb all month. Thus far April seems to be more accepting that spring has arrived. In our house we know that spring has arrived when we start to be awoken daily by the hammering of a Woodpecker on the outside of our house. I am not sure if it is the same Woodpecker every year, or even every morning, but our vinyl cedar shake shading seems to really have a special attraction, which is lacking in the dozens of trees in a 3 yard radius.

Watching the feeders right now is like a reunion. All our summer favorites have returned from their winter abodes and are getting settled back in. And those winter residents that never left us seem to be venturing out a bit more than they do in the winter, taking advantage of the change in the weather to begin bulking up. Even if we cannot see them all, we can most certainly hear them. With so many birds in the neighborhood establishing their territorial boundaries, searching for mates and seeming to be generally happy that the sun is somewhat shining, the neighborhood is alive with bird song.

Just a few days ago I decided to put my finch feeder back out on the post and see if I could attract New Jersey’s state bird, the goldfinch. In less than twenty-four hours I had success. The males were still molting into their bright yellow summer outfits, but they came none the less. I have been very pleased with the variety of birds I have seen this early in April. This includes some less frequent visitors, such as a curious Carolina Wren and a chatty Brown-headed Cowbird. Even one Dark-Eyed Junco is still kicking around. He seemed unconvinced that winter has left for good, but I think he is alone in that thinking.

Besides being as hungry as ever, they also seem to have that nesting bug. Both of my nest boxes are already humming with activity as two pairs of House Sparrows do their part to increase the population.

So try to take a few minutes each day to go outside and take it all in. The world hasn’t ended and life is going to carry on just as it always has. We will be able to get out to our nature preserves and parks soon, so just hang in there and take quarantine one day at a time.

A Short Trip To Florida: Day 2 Mead Botanical Garden

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Following my amazing experience at the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, I was fairly sure that whatever I did with my second day alone in Florida would seem underwhelming. I decided to check out something a bit closer to Orlando, and went to Winter Park. I spent the morning exploring Mead Botanical Garden.

Named for naturalist Theodore Luqueer Mead, who first visited Florida to study butterflies in 1869, Mead Botanical Garden was started in 1937. This non-profit just celebrated its 75th anniversary and continues to provide a variety of family programming in their own oasis of nature in the middle of the suburbs. For more information about Mead Botanical Garden, you can check out their website at https://www.meadgarden.org/

Being about 47 acres in total, and not all of it accessible to visitors, I had a lot less ground to cover than I had on my previous day’s outing. I decided to leisurely wander the trails and enjoy the morning sunshine. When one hears the word garden, usually we are expecting flowers to be oozing out of every possible square inch of soil. The Botanical Gardens were not that garden. They did have many lovely flowering plants and also a variety of palms, greens and trees that gave the garden a park atmosphere.

There were many sections of the garden dedicated to butterfly attracting, which given its namesake’s interest in entomology makes perfect sense. I saw several varieties, but only one Monarch was so preoccupied with nectar gathering as to remain stationary long enough for me to get a decent photograph.

As I headed onto the boardwalk through Lake Lillian Marsh I met with a Carolina Wren. Looking a bit ruffled, it sat on the railing taking a look out into the Marsh.

Not long after seeing the Wren, I started noticing a lot of smaller lizards, crawling along palm fronds and resting on branches. Often they had changed their color to blend in with the surroundings. From my Florida Field Guide I determined that they were all Brown Anole, a smaller lizard from the Iguana family. Brown Anole can change their coloring from tan to darker browns in order to provide themselves some camouflage. They never grow much larger than 7 or 8 inches, which, as far as I am concerned, places them strongly in the “cute” category. One of them even decided to show me his dewlap, or neck flap. I was focusing on him as he sat totally stretched out on the railing, sucking up some early morning rays. While I was looking into my camera, he suddenly unfurled his dewlap, almost in the same way one would casually blow a bubble with chewing gum. I am not sure if he was trying to encourage me to buzz off or not. If so, it didn’t work. I just stood around focused and waiting for him to do it again. Eventually he obliged and I continued on my way.

A good portion of the trail follows along beside a shallow creek. Being a weekday, I had most of the trails to myself. But at one turn in the trail, I realized I wasn’t the only one out for a leisurely stroll. A Great Egret and a Glossy Ibis were both walking along the trail, very methodically. They walked in front of me on the trail a few yards. Eventually they decided to head back into the water and try their luck at fishing.

There were also a few noisy Northern Cardinals around. They were fairly skittish and stuck to the shadows, under the palms. I did get a few photos of one particularly grumpy and rough looking character.

Carolina Wren

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Their small size and general lack of interest in seeds and feeders makes spotting a Wren in the garden more than your run of the mill day in the yard. Not that I wish to imply that Wrens are uncommon. They are pretty common in yards, or at least their songs are. If you don’t know where to look and who you are looking for, spotting a Wren could be a bit of a challenge. Following their song is always a good place to start.

One of six wrens common to the Northeastern United States, the Carolina Wren is easily the most distinct. They are the same size as their fellow Wrens and have a similar body type, including a brown body and down-curved beak. However, what sets them apart is their distinct white eyebrows. Their chest is also brighter than other Wrens, starting white toward their heads and fading into yellow halfway down their chests.

Carolina Wrens prefer good cover in bushes or shrubs, but these songbirds can’t help themselves, they keep bursting into song. Each male sings between twenty-seven and forty-one songs and the males and females have been known to sing duets. The pair will mate and remain monogamous for an entire breeding season, having two broods. Due to their need for cover, they tend to look for natural cavities in which to create a nest.

While they will occasionally eat fruit or seeds, this is rare. Their primary diet is insects. This interest in bugs makes them a common ground hunter. Look for them around leaf piles and tree roots, poking around and searching for insects.