Dinner and Potty Time

Ok, folks... for those of you who get squeamish, this might be a video to pass up on. For those of you who love SCIENCE and NATURE, check it out!

Did you watch the last video with the anole prowling around the wren nest? Well, this time one of the parents showed up with a lizard as dinner for one of the lucky chicks. I am not sure whether it is an anole or a gecko but it's not the anole from the other video... looking back at timestamps, this video was actually from earlier in the evening than the anole's visit.

I know that wren's are one of the birds that change their eating habits when feeding young, switching from seeds and such to live food, but I had no idea that would include something as large as a lizard!

As for the other bit that might make some folks squeamish, yes, after each meal the parents take away a fecal sack from one of the chicks, disposing of it somewhere well away from the nest. Baby bird diapers!

As gross as this may seem, it actually makes sense compared the alternative, a very messy nest. According to this article by the Audubon Society, the practice is not well-understood by avian scientists.  

A Visitor at the Wren Nest

Recently, shortly after one of the parents fed their chicks, the wren nest had a brief visitation from an anole (what we used to mistakenly call chameleons since they often change color to match the background). If there had still been eggs in the nest instead of hatchlings, he might have had a meal. Though as you'll see in the next video, it may be a good thing he didn't come around while the wren parents were at the nest...

A Busy Day at the Wren Nest

Our first real glimpse of activity around the nest these two Carolina Wren's built in the yucca in our backyard (other than Momma Wren sitting on the nest). 

Music 

Spring Morning 

by Maarten Schellekens 

Commercial Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Momma Wren

Our Weimaraner, Luna, kept wandering around the yucca in the corner of our backyard. On closer inspection, what she was interested in was a bird nest with 5 eggs in it. I put up some fencing material that would keep Luna out but not interfere with the parents coming and going from the nest, then set up my camera a bit away from the nest with a telephoto lens and shot video for about an hour. 

After bringing the camera in and inspecting the video, I found a section where the mother had come back to the nest and was sitting on the eggs. This is a clip from that video. We aren't sure how long the eggs have been there but wren eggs take 12-16 weeks to incubate and it hasn't been that long since our last freeze so our best guess is that we'll see hatchlings in late April or early May. 

Stay tuned! 

Music by Podington Bear

"Wren"

Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC) 

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ 

Chad Crouch