Those Wonderful Wrens

I am not a birder. Sure, I know a little about birds, probably more than most folks, but I only know the more common birds. There are some people around here that are birders. They can identify all of the different warblers, and buntings, and ducks by sight, by their song, etc. I freely admit that I am not in that same league. But, I do have a bookshelf full of bird books and I use them frequently. Maybe you do too.

But even if you aren’t a birder either, many of you probably enjoy feeding birds in the winter and watching them at your feeders. One of the cutest little birds that visits my suet feeders every day is the Carolina Wren. There are several kinds of wrens, but the most common one around here is the Carolina Wren. He is the one with the tail that always seems to stick up in the air (like all wrens) and the two-tone brown with the prominent white eyebrow.

Carolina Wrens range over most of the eastern U.S., but I don’t recall ever seeing any until I moved to Tennessee. They are insect eaters and they don’t readily come to feeders, but in the winter when insects are scarce they will hang around suet feeders. Usually they like to eat on the ground, but the one in my yard eventually moves up to the feeder after he picks up all the suet scraps that the other birds dropped on the ground.

The Wren in the Photo is a Carolina Wren on a suet feeder outside my window.

Carolina Wrens sometimes nest in the strangest places. A friend has one that nests inside his closed garage every year on the shelf with all the dangerous lawn chemicals. He is not sure how the bird finds her way into the closed garage, but she returns every year. The nest is a fluffy affair with an entrance on the side. In another example, last year, twice, I had to throw out the beginnings of a nest as big as a football from inside my barbeque grill. With the cover closed the only way in was through a small hole near the bottom. I mean, I like to have the wrens around, but I didn’t want braised birds on the barbee.

I think that wrens have some of the prettiest voices in the bird world. Carolina Wrens sing a wide variety of songs. Another western wren that I used to hear in Texas is the Canyon Wren. It has a beautiful series of descending notes that you will never forget once you hear it. Like its name, it lives in canyons.

There are a couple of other wrens that you might see in Tennessee. The Bewick’s Wren is similar to the Carolina Wren, but duller. I am not sure I have ever seen one yet. The Winter Wren visits here in the winter only, as its name implies, and the House Wren lives here in the summer.

Now, I like all the little wrens, but I am not a big fan of the House Wren and it mostly has to do with that wren’s behavior in relationship to Bluebirds. First of all, the House Wren will fill every Bluebird box in your yard with pencil sized sticks. The male places these sticks in several possible nesting sites to attract a female, even though the female will use only one of the nests. But in the meantime, the wren has excluded all other birds from using any of the nest boxes. Additionally, House Wrens will enter Bluebird nests and peck holes in the eggs or even remove the newly hatched Bluebird babies from the nest to die on the ground outside. House Wrens and Bluebirds don’t readily mix…but then that is nature.

Look for wrens around your yard. They are little, smaller than a sparrow, and usually very quick, and always with a tail that sticks up in the air. Even us non-birders can identify these cute little guys that are fun to watch an hear.