Bird Brain!

My troubles with the neighborhood avian life are apparently not over. Last week, we had this. This week, it is the wrens. Or rather one specific wren. Wrens are cute little birds and they are early morning singers which gives us something nice to wake up to. They do have one rather irritating habit this time of year that I could do without. It is the males actually who have this habit and as is often the case with persons of the male persuasion, they are at the their most irritating when they are trying to impress a woman. In the wrens’ defense, they do not seem to annoy the female wrens – unlike human males who often aggravate rather than impress human females, but I digress.

What seems to impress female wrens are sticks. Yes, you heard me – sticks. Piles of them actually, all neatly clipped to a certain size and arranged just so. In early June, male wrens begin assembling these piles of sticks. In an effort to cover all their bets, they do not limit themselves to just one pile of sticks either. They place the sticks in numerous locations in hopes of finding a spot that will impress a female wren enough that she will want to marry him and have his babies. The males build the nest foundations and then sit near them and sing, presumably extolling the virtues of each particular location and the beauty and precision with which he has exhibited the sticks thereon. Or in this case – therein, since the wren of which I speak has chosen this decorative and unsuitable bird house on my front porch.
What makes this bird house unsuitable, in addition to its location on the porch, is its proximity to Riley who likes to spend his summer afternoons napping right under this spot. There is nothing Riley likes more than trying to catch bees and other bugs that fly past him and I can’t image he would discriminate against a wren or two.

This wren examined the potential new homeHe seemed to find everything to his likingAnd immediately began bringing a lovely pile of sticks so he could get started on his new house.He then sat on the railing and began to sing about his accomplishment, hoping a lonely lady wren would find him irresistibleMy recent interviews with backyard wildlife have enabled me to understand the lyrics, which seem to be sung to the tune of “Oh What a Beautiful Morning”:
Oh what a beautiful bunch-of-sticks I’ve made!
Oh what beautiful sticks!
You should co-ome and see them!
You’ll want to have babies with me!

No matter how many times I went out and emptied the house of sticks, he came back and put in more. Finally, I turned it face down so that he couldn’t get in it anymore and that seemed to convinced that he ought to look elsewhere. We were somewhat prepared for this event, since a pair of wrens nested in a decorative birdhouse out in the garden last summer – and ruined it. I bought a new, sturdier version and we got it out there a couple days ago. No wrens yet, but it won’t be long.

Now I just have to deal with the pair of chipping sparrows who have their nest in the dwarf Alberta Spruce in the front garden. My weeding is giving them absolute fits – they sit in the crabapple tree and swear at me the whole time I am out there.