Friday, April 06, 2007

Wrens are egg-cellent.

Word of the Day:
clarion \KLAIR-ee-uhn\, noun:
1. A kind of trumpet having a clear and shrill note.
2. The sound of this instrument or a sound similar to it.
3. Sounding like the clarion; loud and clear.

It freakin' snowed today.
And while I kept shaking my head in disbelief, I had to admit the flowers looked pretty, dusted with the stuff.
Snow on tulip
Someone jazzed up the front yard of RAPTOR with tulips...
Purple whatchamacallits
...and it looks like some grape hyacinth has escaped. All over the place. The girls picked me a whole handful. So I put them in a baggie filled with water and hung them in the barn for all the other RAPTORites to enjoy.
Lovely Lucy
I can't stop taking pictures of Lucy. She just rocks.

And now...drum roll...the first eggs in the yard for 2007:
I was out in the front yard trying to get pictures of the crows who have been hanging out in the trees but refuse to come down to eat what I have to offer. A brown blur caught my eye, and as I turned, I saw one of the Carolina wrens flying away from the nest box by the garage. I walked over and tipped the box a bit to see what was going on in there. And another wren came barreling out and scared the bejesus out of me.
I reached in quickly and felt at least two warm eggs. Damn. I flushed her from incubating!
I went back in the house and waited for her to come back, which she did. The whole time, I was talking to her (myself)..."Come on, get back in there. Please, please, please!"
A bit later, I walked out, stayed far away from her, and took a picture.
And I almost deleted it. On the camera's monitor, I couldn't see anything, but when I zoomed in, I saw this:

Wren on nest
A bright, wary eye just peeking up from a throne of eggs.
I'm thrilled that wrens are making themselves at home here, and think this is a good enough place to raise a family. I am sure that they have nested here before, but I've never found the evidence. I have no idea when she started sitting, so I will call this Day +/- 2.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

So cool to know your first eggs of the season. Congratulations on the wrens nesting. Keep us informed.

Heather
Wayne, PA

Anonymous said...

Snow, ugg, we are close to a foot of snow over the past few days! LOL, Lucy would for sure fill my harddrive with pictures! keep them coming! Congrats on the Carolina Wren! How exciting!

LauraHinNJ said...

What a little cutey pie!

Mary said...

Yay! She's there! I've been worried about the finch in the nest on my porch but she's there, cold as hell, but hanging on. We are having record cold - 20's at night. I love the Carolina Wrens. You're lucky, Susan.

I can't believe you have snow. Something is wrong here... And, yes, Lucy rocks.

NatureWoman said...

Egg-cellent for sure Susan!! Very cool you have eggs!! And I love Lucy, too!
This snow and cold *has* to go away now. It's ridiculous.

Jayne said...

Awww... she's cute in her blue jean house! I saw something at the opening of my wren house the other day and saw with my binos, a green lizzard climbing in! EEK! No nest in there yet, so hopefully he was just exploring... will have to keep a watch out. Thanks for coming by my blog Susan.

Unknown said...

Snow and eggs. Weird spring for you guys. Weird spring. I'm going to have to put up some birdhouses around here.

Anonymous said...

I had Carolina Wrens around here most of the winter, but haven't seen or heard them in quite some time. Worried...

I did see a cute pair of Carolinas along the trail at CNC today while doing my weekly field survey, just not in my study plot. Last week, I was rained on, this week I had snow. What will befall me next week? A tsunami?

My bluebird pair are hanging in there; I saw Mama leave the nest box this afternoon and both of them came for a suet dough breakfast, so I have hopes this clutch will survive.

~Kathi, waiting for warmer weather

Anonymous said...

Hi, another of the 2000 Bloggers here... I like your blog. Photos of teal, wood ducks, Canadas and falcons -- I like that a lot. Congratulations on the wrens nesting in the box you set up. Keep us posted if and when anything interesting happens with them.

Susan Gets Native said...

Kelly Cat: Thanks for visiting. Come back anytime!

Kathi: Quit rubbing it in about your BBs. I haven't even SEEN my pair yet.

Liza: Living in the Ohio river valley, you never know what kind of weather is just around the bend.

Jayne: EEK! is right!!!!

Pam: April is full of cruel jokes, huh?

Mary: Keep us posted about your little darlings on the porch!

Laura: I am, ain't I?

Mon@rch: I won't complain about the snow. You have a foot of the crap.

Heather: And where the Hell have YOU been?
I will be posting about every little development concerning the wrens!