I love the time somewhere between 8:00am and 9:00am when the birds are going crazy getting their breakfast. Of course, I need to keep the feeders filled in order for me to witness this special time. We have four seed feeders: one hanging feeder by our bedroom sliding glass door, one hanging feeder on the corner of the screen porch, one tray feeder attached to a tree trunk, and one tray feeder on the outside kitchen window sill. I didn't believe that the window sill feeder would ever be that successful when Brett put it up a few years ago. I have been pleasantly surprised by the activity that it has attracted, both from birds and squirrels. We also have a bird bath, and during the summer we put up a hummingbird feeder or two.
During this morning feeding time, there is usually about a fifteen minute time period when the birds are everywhere, and I see quite a few different species. I love catching glimpses of the bright red Northern Cardinals; the cute, little, black and white and gray Carolina Chickadees [a no-show this morning...]; the big and colorful Blue Jays; the red Mohawk on the Red-Bellied Woodpecker; and the bright blue Eastern Bluebirds. The finches, though abundant, elicit no real excitement.
But the more I watch my backyard birds, the more I fall in love with the Carolina Wren. It is a cute little brown bird, with a golden tummy and a white eye stripe. His beak has a little curve, and his tail is always sticking straight up in the air. I love that the wren has personality. When he comes to the feeder he makes a mess, tossing out the seeds that he's not interested in. He is a smart little fellow who can find his way in, through, and back out of "people places," like our porch or our garage. [The male and female look alike, so I am referring to the wren as a "he" just to make it easier on myself.]
We have inadvertently caught a few birds in our screen porch over the years. Then, we have to figure out a way to guide these (stupid) birds back out of the porch without them injuring themselves too much by smashing against the screens. It is easiest to get the mourning doves out of the porch. Brett just calls Copper and tells him to get the bird. Copper runs out into the porch, softly grabs the bird (I understand that's an oxymoron, but there's no better way to explain it), and brings it back to Brett who safely releases the bird back outside. That hasn't happened very often, but it sure has been neat to watch when it has.
The wren hops into the porch (wrens are cute little "hoppers"), snoops around a bit, and shows himself out when he's seen all he wants to see. After Brett installed a new door for the garage, I was surprised to find two wrens snooping in the closed garage a few mornings later. They had come through the hole where the deadbolt should have been. (Brett had not yet put a deadbolt on the door.) I thought it was a one-time thing, but the next morning, I saw that the wrens were back and actively building a nest on one of our garage shelves, despite the fact that we had provided at least two birdhouses for them to nest in. It looks like they have completed their nest, but I have not seen much activity in the garage these days, and I wonder if they got spooked by all of the activity in the garage this weekend by Brett. We'll see what happens. Both Brett and I think it would be nice to have some little baby wrens to watch.
