Our wonderful family of wrens
A couple of years ago we received a gift of three straw nest boxes from Nicky’s aunt, who lives on the island of Islay in western Scotland. Unsure what to do with them I wedged one between the roof and purlin of our woodstore, and promptly forgot all about it. The next year it saw the arrival of young wrens, but we were too busy to enjoy them at the time.
This year we paid more attention, and for days we’d heard the chirping increase and had been able to sit and watch parent wrens feeding the young. Then, two days ago, the first fledgling fell to the ground, where it sat helplessly dependant upon a parent to bring it insect meals. We kept watch as it became more adventurous and hopped onto the log splitter.
Within hours it had made it into the bottle recycling box and had to be rescued, whereupon it clung to the bit of flesh that appears when you stretch out your thumb. It sat there, chirping, for about three minutes before I placed it somewhere safer.
Others started to fall from the nest, and the woodstore became alive with chirping and feeding. They became more adventurous and hopped and semi-flew from box edge to log, to log splitter, to pallet, etc. We’ve kept a close eye on them this time, and watched in amazement at the work rate of parent wrens on a feeding mission; flying between our stuff to find and feed their young ones.
Today I found three fledglings huddled together on our lawn, and then they flew closer to the hedge and followed mother – or tried to. It was so funny to watch them try to fly up into the hedge, hang onto a leaf only to fall away back to ground. Wonderful.
The last few days have been a revelation to us. At one point today I watched as four young ones hopped around the garden. Seeing how quickly these new lives came to be, and how quicky they learn to cope with what will be their relatively short lives. I only hope they’ll be back next year.
