I was interested in Dave Nutter’s recent reports on a pair of Carolina wrens
that successfully nested in a hanging planter on his back porch. It was just a
few days after his first report (7/18) that we noticed Carolina wrens carrying
nesting material to a hanging basket of fuchsia suspended from a beam under the
ceiling of our otherwise unenclosed back porch. By the weekend of 7/26-7/27, we
suspected that they were incubating their clutch. August 10 was the first day
we observed food being brought to the nest, but the eggs may have hatched a day
or so earlier. My wife saw an adult bringing food to the nest early in the
morning on 8/21, but the nest was empty by the afternoon, and so, to our great
disappointment, we totally missed what we assume was the successful fledging of
the young. We never peered into the nest (a domed structure with the entrance
located on the side facing the backyard) to count babies, either. The nest
location was about 10 feet from our back door and five feet from a kitchen
window from which we could observe the activity. Since we spend very little
time sitting on the porch, the birds took little or no notice of us and flew
fairly directly to the nest when delivering food. We once heard them making
nervous-sounding vocalizations when a seemingly oblivious chipmunk loitered for
awhile on the ground under their nest location until we drove it away. My wife
also once saw the wrens drive away a downy woodpecker that landed briefly on a
post near the nest. Though we rarely heard the male giving its full song during
the nesting period, at least one of the birds (the male?) spent an amazing
amount of time (especially in late morning and during the afternoon) repeating
monotonously the brief slurred trill call that is one of the wren’s common
vocalizations. It gave this call from many locations close to our house, but
perhaps its favorite calling perch was the handle of our lawn mower, which was
for some days parked on our porch about ten feet from the nest. We believe that
the frequency of calling increased as the fledging date approached; if so, it
suggests that the vocalizing was directed mostly at the nestlings. Perhaps some
learning of the call goes on at this period. We’ve hardly heard this call, or
any other, since the young (presumably) fledged.
Over the many years that we’ve lived in our South Hill house, we’ve
occasionally had house wrens and chickadees nest in the hollow top of a post at
the corner of the porch, but having any bird make a nest in a hanging basket
was a first for us. The poor fuchsia plant showed signs of getting very thirsty
as the nesting period progressed, but it survived (albeit with no blooms at
this point). We are wondering how frequently hanging baskets (or other
planters) are utilized by Carolina wrens (or any other species) as nest sites.
Two instances in Ithaca in the same season might suggest that it’s not a rare
occurrence, but I can’t recall any other reports in previous years (which,
given my memory, proves nothing). Perhaps this post will spur some
recollections of others. In any case, our wrens have made this a fun and
memorable summer for birds even though we’ve seldom gotten out in the field.
And a couple of other thoughts. For decades, we’ve had house wrens nesting
in our backyard in bird houses that we’ve provided. The last wren house fell
apart a couple of years ago, and we have not replaced it. So now we have no
house wrens, and for the first time (to our knowledge) we‘ve had a pair of
Carolina wrens nesting around the house. Is this a coincidence, or do these
wrens exhibit interspecific territoriality (I haven’t researched this point in
BNA)? Also, last winter was the sort of brutally cold season that is supposed
to result in high mortality on Carolina wrens, yet we had a pair around our
feeders all winter—perhaps the same pair that nested here this summer. Have
others noticed any decrease in the Carolina wren population this year? If not,
perhaps feeders are mitigating the losses that this species formerly suffered
during harsh winters.
Lindsay Goodloe
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