My off-again, on-again love for wrens

There was an old man with a beard,
who said: “It is just as I feared!
Two owls and a hen, four larks and a wren
Have all built their nests in my beard.”
– Edward Lear

I loved wrens. Until I didn’t.

Not long after Steve and I had moved from our apartment in Chicago to our first single-family home in West Dundee, we acquired a second home—a wren house. We hoped to attract a nesting pair of house wrens, the most common wren and the species found in our area. Its name derives from its tendency to nest near human dwellings. As songbirds that prefer to nest in cavities, house wrens are especially attracted to nest boxes and seem to prefer them to natural cavities. To protect the wren house from the weather and give us a front-row seat, we hung it up in early spring under the eave at one end of our front porch and waited for the fun to begin.

Our wait wasn’t long. First, we heard a male wren singing, seemingly continuously, in the vicinity of our yard. Next, we observed him perched on the peak of the bird house roof and trilling there, estabishing his territory and claiming ownership of the nest box. Pretty soon our front steps, directly under the house, were strewn with small twigs and grasses. I grumbled about having to sweep away the daily mess, but I was also glad the male wren was setting up housekeeping in the nest box. Watching him try to fit numerous long twigs through the round opening was also a source of amusement. He would make several attempts by adjusting the twig’s angle before giving up or shortening the twig. Male wrens typically build rudimentary nests in multiple places for a female to consider as part of the courting process. Along with ours, a wren house in our next-door neighbor’s front yard was also being considered for occupancy. We hoped his chosen mate agreed with us that our wren house was a lot cuter than our neighbor’s. She would have the final say.

Through the “dummy” nest-building process, the male wren sings frequently from dawn to dusk to attract a female. Soon, we were spotting two wrens together in our front yard, acting for all the world like a partnered couple: enaging in friendly chases, foraging and feeding in close proximity, occasionally singing, sometimes squabbling, and then selecting their dwelling. I knew the female had chosen our bird house when one day I noticed the front steps were littered with even more twigs and debris than before. As is true for all breeding female wrens, once she selects a nest site, she brusquely tosses out most of the nest the male constructed and starts all over again, building it to her specifications and lining it with soft materials like grass, feathers and cocoons. It makes perfect sense. Since she alone is responsible for egg incubation, only her comfort and construction standards matter. Fun fact: Wrens sometimes place spider egg sacs into the nest; when the spiders hatch, they eat potentially harmful nest parasites.

The nest completed, we saw little of the female as she incubated the eggs, anywhere from three to ten in number, for around two weeks. One day we were excited and charmed to hear faint peeping sounds emitted by the hatchlings. We were also impressed by how diligently the male and female tended to them. Songbirds have a tough job. Unlike many waterfowl babies that can feed themselves and can walk and swim shortly after hatching, songbirds’ nestlings are essentially helpless until they fledge (i.e., leave the nest). The parents are therefore busily occupied with constant feeding during the 15 to 17 days the babies are in the nest. In that short span they are transformed from tiny, immobile, almost naked creatures to roly-poly, full-feathered birds capable of flight. By observing the adult wrens going in and out of the house to feed their young, we gained some appreciation for the wide variety of insects they consume. Caterpillars, spiders, beetles, leafhoppers, grasshoppers, flies, and various bugs are all on the menu. As they neared fledging, occasionally we could see a tiny beak and small head poking out of the hole.

We were not fortunate enough to witness the babies fledging, but I found an adorable video of baby house wrens fledging from a nest box. Watching this video, I chuckled over the babies chattering, quarreling, getting in each other’s way and pushing each other around like human siblings do. Some of them also exhibit the hesitancy common to many humans when they’re about to try a new and dangerous physical skill: getting ready to make the leap, but then thinking better of it and retreating. Once they leave the nest, the babies hang around their parents to learn how to find food and watch for predators. We hoped to see the juveniles hopping and fluttering about with the adults, but we never did. Our wren house excitement had come to an end.

There’s a lot to love about these little songbirds, and, given their huge range, healthy population and comfort around people, they have many human admirers. Wrens have the broadest reach of any songbird in the Western Hemisphere, with different species breeding from Canada down to the tip of South America. House wrens are not very picky when it comes to their habitat. If an area has trees, shrubs, tangled vegetation mixed with open areas, and loads of insects, they’re happy. Parks and yards often meet their requirements. One of their charms is their habit of choosing unusual nesting locations in manmade objects, a behavior not unknown among other species. A wide variety of birds have nested on objects ranging from the top of a stoplight, the back of a floating goose decoy, the top of the head of a large statue of a human figure, and, in the case of one hummingbird pair, the top of a patio windchime. Yet wrens so frequently engage in this behavior that one case was documented by John James Audubon in his house wren image.

There is also no question wrens are adorable to look at and observe, with several pleasing attributes that more than compensate for their unassuming plumage. Their big, feisty personality belies their tiny frames; adults’ weight matches that of two quarters. House wrens are fierce defenders of their nests. When the wren house was occupied and we’d go out the front door, we were often subjected to a chattering scolding from the male wren, as if to say, “What do you think you’re doing here?” Their round little bodies are punctuated by their tails, which they often hold in a vertical position, giving them a jaunty air. The longish, downward sloping beaks give them a slightly dour appearance that contrasts with their joyful songs. A wren singing is truly a miracle of nature. That such small birds can produce these strong, loud, complicated series of sounds, rapidly repeated at short intervals, is amazing. The wren’s song has been described variously as a “stuttering, gurgling outburst”; “a heady mixture of trills, chirps, whistles and buzzes”; “effervescent”; “rush and jumble;” and “bubbly and energetic.” Listen and decide for yourself. Hearing that cheerful sound at dawn each morning last spring and summer certainly helped me survive the pandemic year.

With so much to love about wrens, and having had an engaging experience as neighbors of a nesting pair, why did I later hesitate to put the wren house back out in the spring? My reluctance stemmed from having learned some aspects of these birds’ behavior that diminished them in my eyes. First, they are “cheaters,” as one observer put it, trading one partner for another in the middle of the breeding season, even when one brood in still in the nest. Here’s one description from A Natural History of North American Birds from Eastern and Central North America:

“…one male mated with a certain female, and while she was sitting on her eggs he left her and mated with another female, joining her in nesting in another box. The first female hatched her brood, fed them for a while, and then apparently became enamored of another male, brought her first male back to attend to her brood, and went away with her new lover ansd started another family while the first male fed and reared her first brood. Such actions would constitute a scandal in polite society.”

Second, and much more disconcerting, I found out wrens have a nasty habit of puncturing the eggs or killing the hatchlings of other species that made the unfortunate decision to nest in the wren’s territory. I was especially alarmed when I learned that chickadees and bluebirds, favorite species of mine, count among their victims. Having made those discoveries, I seriously considered leaving our wren house in the garage, collecting dust and unoccupied, that next spring.

Eventually I reached a different conclusion. I reflected on how we tend to judge all creatures, for good or ill, according to our uniquely human viewpoint. The same human perspective that prompts us to like wrens in part because they tolerate us and often raise young close by also engenders disapproval of wrens’ unfaithfulness and slaughter of innocent baby birds. I realized I could admire the bald eagle’s awe-inspiring soaring ability even though it often steals other raptors’ captured prey. I can appreciate the many different bird species that make nestlings a regular part of their diet, knowing it’s part of the natural order of things. And I could understand the wrens are following their instincts to maximize the health and survival chances of their progeny and relish hearing their exuberant songs without reservation. I put the wren house back up.