Thistledog's Farm

The wren babies fledged and left the nest on Mother’s Day, a little earlier than last year’s batch.

Once again, we were out on the back patio drinking our morning coffee at just the right moment, and had front seats for the big event.   After weeks spent feeding their noisy brood, the hard working wren parents woke this particular day and knew the time had come to introduce the kids to the rest of the world.  So they sang their yellow-beaked youngsters out of the birdhouse, calling them out one by one until all four had glided clumsily over to the shrubs, wide-eyed and chirring.

Last year the wren fledglings left their birdhouse nest and never returned.  This year’s family, which may or may not be the same breeding pair of birds, is returning every night to the nest, and the routine of calling the wren kids in at dusk and getting them settled for the night is fascinating and entertaining to watch. 

A little after sunset, Papa wren takes his post up close to the patio and sings a long, loud stanza that sounds like “ally ally out in free-ee-ee,”  over and over again, followed by a string of insistent chirrs.  It may take 10 or 15 minutes but eventually the kids show up, chirring and flitting through the backyard shrubs, and make their way up to the patio overhang to the birdhouse.  One by one, they make their way into their nest, sometimes popping back out and hopping around on the rafters a bit, but finally all four are tucked safely in for the night and their little voices go silent.

The first few days it took both parents to coax the clumsy fledglings back inside; now they’ve got the routine down and Papa wren marshalls them up by himself.  Once the kids are in bed, the two adult wrens fly off into the nearby bushes to find their own sleeping posts, or grab another bug snack, who knows.

In the morning, at daybreak, they wake them up and call them out for another day of flying and feeding instruction.

I have no idea how long they’ll continue to bed the youngsters down in the nestbox, but it’s a pleasure to watch this little vignette of daily wren family life from our front-row seats on the patio, just a few feet away.