A few days after I returned from Florida to my place in
North Carolina at the beginning of March, a pair of Carolina Wrens (Thryothorus ludovicianus) built a nest
on top of an electric outlet box in my house. The house was (is) still under
construction, so they could easily get in and out at will. Over the next week,
the female laid five eggs in the nest. I didn’t want to quit working on the
house and didn’t want to evict the birds either, although I had already run off
four or five flying squirrels (Glaucomys volans)
from the eaves and a major nest of house mice (Mus musculus) from the basement. So, I just left the birds alone
and went to work on the house.
The wrens and I puttered around each other, they warily
and me deliberately. I tried to give them as much personal space as I could,
but house construction went on regardless. Over the next two months they
incubated the eggs and fed the hatchlings in the nest until yesterday, when the
nestlings fledged. I don’t know how many of the original five survived, but I counted
at least four. This photo shows three of them in the house:
The four young-uns and their parents freaked out when I arrived
that morning, but three of the nestlings were able to fly from the nest area up
to the soffit and then across and down into a mountain laurel bush (Kalmia latifolia) outside where they
remained and rested for a while. The fourth nestling, apparently the runt of
the litter, was too weak to make it up to the soffit. It tried to hide from me
and then escape my gentle clutches, all to no avail:
I easily captured it and placed it outside in the shrubs
where I had seen the others, but by then they were gone. Hopefully, its parents
heard its weak chirps and came to rescue it, but it was no longer there when I
checked on it later.
Of course, I immediately removed the nest from the house,
and they have not since replaced it. If they try to do so, I’ll delete it
before they can lay more eggs in it. However, my guess is that they have built
a second nest elsewhere outside away from the Big Bad Buford.
I am amazed at how many species of wildlife have already
tried to move in on me this year. Besides the flying squirrels, house mice and
wrens, there are mud daubers, paper wasps, a scorpion, and numerous spiders. I
am not alone.
