Discover more from My Gaia
“Bodhi’s got something!” My husband bounded off the porch and reached down into the leaves, where our puppy was staring. Michael came back to the porch with a baby bird in his hand.
It was much too young to fly or even to hop, although its eyes were open. Red ants were biting its sparsely-feathered skin. By the time we had picked off the ants, we had totally bonded.
That is how a nestling House Wren came to share our lives for a while. We lived, in the late 1960s, in a small cabin in the mountains of California, without telephone or electricity, and far from the nearest town.
From the start, the little wren was “him.” Although there was no way to know the gender, the intensely alive creature in no way was an “it.” We named him “Groover. This was long before we knew of laws against adopting wild birds.
Groover recovered from his ant bites. He accepted scrambled egg and other food from our hands. He grew fast, sprouted feathers, and chirped madly all day to be fed.
Before he could quite fly, he would hop up to where we were sleeping and awaken us. It’s breakfast time!
Within a couple of weeks, Groover was able to fly and had fledged from our porch. For another week or so he returned to us several times a day for food, and perhaps even for company.
And then he was gone.
And now…
Over the decades I have known many House Wrens, though never again one who actually lived in my house. House Wrens seem especially personal to me.
They find places to nest in tree cavities and unexpected crannies near our home. They come around when I’m outdoors.
Sometimes in summer I sit outside with mealworms, seeing if I can earn the trust of birds who are feeding young.
One day a mother House Wren showed up and landed on the table right beside me. As if to ask for a share of the bounty.
Such boldness.
This mother bird got so comfortable that she would land on me and take mealworms from my hand. Michael thought it was a great opportunity to make a short, Disneyesque nature movie.
Birdwatcher looking for House Wren
…Wait for it!
On rescuing baby birds…
It may appear otherwise, but baby birds almost never need rescuing. Please CLICK HERE for expert advice from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. It explains what to do when you discover an apparently orphaned baby bird.
it's been a wren summer here... including a wren nesting in our blue bird box to the south of garden, but then being threatened by the thuggish house sparrow trying to overwhelm them! Mila... seeing the crisis at hand.... cut a 1" diameter hole in a piece of sturdy cardboard, and taped it over the 1 1/2 inch hole of the box...too tiny for the sparrow to enter. Sparrows thwarted! Wrens carried on to fledge a dandy batch of 5 babies! Their industry to feed their little clan was wondrous. And there were 2 other concurrent wren production units engaged as well... one in a proper wren house and one... yes... in a lone purple martin plastic gourd. So much joyous singing.... and NO caterpillar destruction in the garden!
Wonderful story. You actually did what most wildlife rescuers do. You fed it, let it grow, and let it go. They have professional set ups, of course, but you did it the best way you could, and it was perfect.