Post by super70sPost by super70sPost by Leon FiskOn Sun, 3 Mar 2024 10:33:07 -0500
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South Carolina's State Bird.Ā I see (and hear) them a lot but they
nearly always fly off before I can grab the camera.
https://i.postimg.cc/TPzLCDhM/carolina-wren.jpg
Nice!
Wrens seem to be twitchy little birds. Rarely sit still for very long
and seem to sense when something is paying them a bit too much
attentionš
Yep, they're nervous.Ā But they also pay attention.Ā When things are
calm they sing a lot.Ā When there is a predator they alert the other
birds.
Jill
On the plus side they're about the only birds that will nest in my birdhouses.
I hear the male goes around and makes several nests, hoping a female
will roost in one.
I have this steel fence near my property with a Dead End sign on
either side, one time one made a nest on a steel bar between the two
signs.
At one time I had a decorative wreath hanging on my front door.Ā A
Carolina wren decided that would be a great place to build a nest.Ā I
didn't know it was there (I generally enter through the kitchen door
off the attached garage).Ā But I opened the front door to go out to
check the mailbox, startled the bird and it flew into my house.Ā I
tried but couldn't shoo it out.Ā I closed off all the interior doors
so it was at least confined to the living room.Ā The next day I was
able to convince it to fly out the front door.Ā I removed the the nest
after making sure there were no eggs in it and removed the wreath.
Had there been eggs I'd have simply not used the front door for a while.
Jill
Well that's quite a story but I saw a local one on TV within the past
year when somebody opened their door and were startled by a snake in one
of those decorative wreaths that jumped out at them! Thankfully they
weren't injured just startled thoroughly.
That would be startling! There are lots of snakes around here, too.
Mostly non-venomous. Most people don't think of snakes as being able to
climb but they certainly can. Years ago there was a mated pair of
Cardinals nesting in the pyracantha next to the garage door. I can see
it through a large picture window in the dining room. One day there was
a huge racket out there. I looked out and the birds were battling a
black snake that had climbed up the tree. There were two newly hatched
birds in the nest. Try as they might, the parent birds could not
dissuade the snake. It carried off both babies and slithered under the
cement slab under my house. Those poor birds were frantic. All day
they kept coming back to the nest, calling out. I hate to
anthropomorphize but they were obviously grieving. When dusk fell they
left and the nest was abandoned. I felt bad for them.
Jill
