At 7 a.m. this morning, the chicks are mostly asleep when a house wren drops by. You can see that it's a house wren by its tail markings and the fact that it's much smaller than the entrance hole.
House wrens compete for nest cavities with bluebirds, and can be real trouble for young chicks. They commonly kill helpless chicks or simply shove them out the nest hole and leave them to die on the ground. In this case, however, perhaps the chicks are too big for the house wren to easily handle. We see the wren examining the nest and the chicks, but it never pokes at them. I also wonder if perhaps the wren was seeking warmth. It was a cold morning.
Another interesting thing we see here is that the chicks never even move when the wren enters the nest. This is particularly noticeable since one has its head up crying about 2 seconds before the wren enters. Perhaps the parents gave a warning call (though you would think that if the parents saw the wren enter they would have chased it off more actively). And when the mom arrives about 30 seconds after the wren leaves, one chick is quick to pop up its head. So it would appear that somehow the chicks knew to lie low only when the wren was there.
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Max / min temperature for May 19: 66 F (18 C)
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37 F (2 C) (
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