Wren Wars

It has been a House Wren day right from the start.  The second box of wrens fledged this morning, accompanied by a lot of chattered encouragement from their mom.  The last two seemed to want to leave the box together with one practically sitting atop the other.  Eventually the one on the bottom sort of slipped out of the box with the other still trying to hang on from inside.  Pretty funny - click HERE to view on Flickr..

While that was unfolding at the edge of the woods in back of our house, out front a drama of a whole different kind was going on.  Apparently a second male has arrived and is trying to take over this territory and, in particular, a box in front of the house that #1 has been working on for the last week.  Birds defend their territory, under the best of circumstances, by singing and doing a bit of chasing.  But on occasion, things get more physical as seen here.  I was standing about 25 feet away when one wren entered the box, followed immediately by the second.  A moment later, both came out of the box and went to the ground, locked in combat.  The fight lasted for at least a minute and covered roughly 3 feet of ground as they rolled around with feet and bills locked.  Since then, I've seen several brief seconds of contact, but nothing approaching this.  Eventually, only one male will claim this territory and, presumably, both females.  Stay tuned...  And if you'd like to see one other shot in the fight sequence, click HERE

Hubs and I are meeting our friends who have the organic farm around the corner (where I had the joy of chicken-sitting this past winter) for dinner tonight.  It is always a great time with many laughs along with some very stimulating conversation.

Lastly, thanks for all the love on my fancy-pants cat yesterday - he's sitting on the front page looking like something from another galaxy...

xo
Debbi