The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #54386   Message #844913
Posted By: lamarca
10-Dec-02 - 05:52 PM
Thread Name: BS: Birdwatching
Subject: RE: BS: Birdwatching
Actually, Bobert, I do have three birdhouses - all wren houses! I love watching the little guy building his "love nests" and yelling his little head off advertising them. In a good year, he'll have a brood in each one (I'm assuming it's the same male, although one house is in front and two are in back).

One year, I had wrens in one house and chickadees in the other. When I went to clean the houses out in the fall, what a difference! The wren nest was all twigs, with a few feathers in the depression, while the chickadee nest was woven from smaller twigs and lined with bits of moss and soft, white fur. Turns out they'd taken bits of Siamese cat fur that I would leave out on the deck after cleaning my cat's brush and lined their nest with it!

I love the marsh wrens at Bombay Hook NWR, popping in and out of the reeds to sing. They're loud, too. And the Carolina wrens come to my suet in the winter, and "sing lustily and with good courage." Not that I'd want to do the little buggers in, but I also like wrenning songs like "The Cutty Wren" (especially Les Barker's wicked parody) and "Please to See the King".