The wrens are working from dawn to dusk seeking food for their babies. They make what must be a couple hundred trips a day. The are very good hunters and come back with everything from moths to catepillers. The babies started out with tiny little peeps from within the nest box. As they grow and begin competing with each other for food, the peeps have grown louder and on occasion one will even peer from the hole. I can only imagine what they think of this huge world outside their current home!
I described the process of the wrens nest building and courting in my first post. There is more to the story that is every bit as interesting. Like most song birds, the wrens keep a tidy nest. The babies actually deposit neat little fecal sacks in the nest. You will see one of the parents bring a bug to the little ones and then carry off one of these little sacks. They fly off and casually drop it along the way to search for another tasty morsell for the babies.
The wrens are extremely ferocios when it comes to defending their property. I say property because they generally tend to claim about a quarter acre as their own. If any other bird gets too close to the nest box they will buzz the fellow until he retreats. The whole time they are dive-bombing the intruder, they are chattering. They generally have a very sweet song and sing very loudly. The Chippewa Indians called the wren O-du-na-mis-sug-ud-da-we-shi, meaning big noise for its size. And it is very loud for it's size.
The next update will come when the babies leave the nest. In the mean time, you can enjoy the picture I have included with this post.
Wrens more or less own the corner of my yard where my burn pile is. If I go back there, they chatter at me constantly.
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