HOUSE WRENS

Today’s bird is the House Wren, a small brown bird with a short tail — a finicky, familiar busy-body that frequently acts as though it owns the place, wherever that place may be. Tiny, grayish brown, and hyperactive, House Wrens are known for flitting about and scolding the world with a raspy chattering. Once the lecture is done, the House Wren opens its mouth and sings for joy.      There’s an old saying about Pug dogs that says a Pug is “a lot of dog in a small space.” This is a description that fits the House Wren as well, for these miniature birds have gigantic personalities.      House Wrens are one of those rare wild creatures that benefit from close association with humans. The fragmentation of forest habitat that occurred when Europeans settled North America was beneficial to the House Wren, for they prefer the edges of woodland to the vastness of the primeval forest. As settlers moved west, clearing land as they went, so went the House Wren, and now this bird is found from coast to coast.      House Wrens often live, nest, and raise their young in close proximity to people, and they show considerable willingness to nest in objects such as bird-houses and hollow gourds.      My husband’s grandmother made wren nests out of old tin cans that were perforated for drainage and hung in the trees, with one end half-open to make a landing. These tiny tin houses were readily adopted by nesting wrens every year.      Certain House Wrens make eccentric choices in their nesting sites. Old boots, cow-skulls, mailboxes, teapots, flowerpots, soap dishes, hats, pipes, and weather vanes, or perhaps the pocket of a coat hung up somewhere and forgotten. In 1937, a pair of wrens built a nest on the rear axle of an automobile that was used daily. When the car was driven, the wrens went along —  somehow, the chicks hatched and fledged successfully.      Arthur Cleveland Bent says that “Wrens are not particular and are just as apt to accept an old rusty can in a garbage heap as they are a neatly painted house set in… a beautiful flower garden.”      Wrens often appropriate the nests of other birds, like Barn Swallows or Phoebes, and they will deepen the cavity and add feathers or twigs to make it their own. Wren nests, though small, are quite dense and when pulled apart, the material of one nest can fill a 2-gallon bucket.      House Wrens were once widely denounced for their habit of destroying the nests of other birds, even other House Wrens. In the 1920s, there was something of a war on House Wrens, with ornithologists arguing for and against the tiny birds. Now it is generally believed that the benefit of these birds’ insect consumption far outweighs the occasional nest depredation.      It does seem that House Wrens get into more trouble with their nests than anything else. Not only do they choose inappropriate places and sometimes torment competitors, they also utilize exotic building materials, like chicken wire or rose thorns.      Harriet C. Battell pulled apart a wren’s nest in 1925 and reported it to be constructed of “52 hairpins, 68 nails (large), 120 small nails, 4 tacks, 13 staples,... 10 pins, 4 pieces of pencil lead, 11 safety pins, 6 paper fasteners, 52 wires,... 1 buckle, 2 hooks, 3 garter fasteners, and 2 odds and ends.”      Maybe we should provide bird houses for our House Wrens, so they can spend less time accumulating hardware and more time singing for joy. [I learned about House Wrens at Birds of North America Online and at BirdsbyBent.com.]