I knew I was feeding live meal worms to my family of bluebirds. They have their special feeder and I keep it well stocked. I also started feeding a catbird family when the female lit at my feet while I was feeding worms to my frogs. So, she is now a regular. Then, a tiny wren joined in the “begging”, and I am feeding her clan as well. I didn’t even know she had a nest, but it’s about 10 feet behind where I sit on the patio. She built a nest in the same grass house they used last year.
When they fledge, these baby wrens might be too fat to fly. I can’t tell you how many hundreds of mealworms they’ve ingested. Funny, the Mama wren can get a maximum of 3 mealworms in her beak at one time, while the bluebirds max out at 8 or 10, but the mother catbird will keep at it until every last mealworm has been accounted for. I think 20 is her all-time best beak full.
I have now gone through 12,000 meal worms from Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm and will probably order another 3,000 next week. I have a lot of mouths to feed, you know.