Recently, during a rare downpour, I saw “Wren-field” pecking away on the window ledge. He had found a juicy spider.
Wren-field is the name I have given to my resident Carolina Wren. He, or one of his ancestors, has called our yard home every year we’ve been living at 214 Brentwood Road. While we’ve only lived in one house for the last 50 years or so, Wren-field has had many houses – sometimes in a water bucket, sometimes beneath the propane gas tank, sometimes in rose bush and sometimes in a hanging ornament. Mr. Wren-field is a sloppy carpenter. He builds make-shift nests all over the yard to attract a mate. When Mrs. Wren-field finds a suitable location, she immediately disassembles her husband’s handiwork and builds a nest as it should be. And it needs to be a very sturdy nest, since wrens often have as many as three broods per year
The Carolina Wren is a chunky little bird with a roundish body and a long tail that cocks upward. Its head is large in comparison to its body with very little neck. The distinctive bill, long, slender, and downcurved, marks it as a wren.
House Wrens, close cousins, are a little smaller. They are darker brown, and have shorter tails than Carolina Wrens. They also lack the white chest and eyebrow stripe of Carolina Wrens.
Both birds can carry a tune – the most melodious of all our birds.
Wrens eat both seeds and insects, but they dearly love spiders. I see them beneath my gas grill, under the bird bath and on the nooks and crannies of porches, always searching for a spider. When they can’t find a protein-rich spider, they peck away at my suet bars. As cold weather sets in, a suet feeder is more important than ever to not only Wren-field, but all our feathered friends. But with Mr. and Mrs. Wren-field in my yard, there are not many itsy-bitsy spiders going up and down the waterspouts.
