Friday, April 29, 2011

Our Nearest Neighbor


Thursday before last  I hastily tidied up around the outside of the camper, knowing that I’d be gone for 3 days and when I came back, my mother would be with me. In doing so, I took some camping chairs that we had out around the fire pit, folded them up, and propped them up at the front of the camper (where the propane tanks go on an Airstream).
That following Monday (possibly Sunday? Oh goodness the days in the sun are making them all blend together!), my mother and I were standing around by there planning and whatnot, when she thought she saw something brown flit by. I swore I could hear some sort of high pitched cheeping, so I tentatively looked over by the chair. I didn’t see anything, but I saw some twigs and when I looked closer, something brown, flying, and not exactly happy went whooshing by my face. Peering in we saw a perfect nest and 5 white rust-mottled eggs in it.
Our sweet (noisy) Carolina Wren has been back since, and we watched her this morning flitting around eating worms, giving us the inquisitive eye, and hopping back into her nest. Hopefully she’ll stay long enough for her chicks to hatch and my driving the mower right by her nest several times an afternoon won’t piss her off too much!
Unassuming stack of camping chairs...

They're reeeeeally tucked way down in there.
 *Update - despite Zora sticking her nose in the nest almost hourly, the wren is still in residence. Although I do believe she has taken to yelling at us from a nearby branch. No babies yet, although they have a 10-14 day incubation period (according to Wikipedia) and so they should be due any day now...

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