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Upstairs apartment. Downstairs is occupied by noisy wrens so bring your earplugs. I was taking this shot of the robin (I think, since no one lives there any more) nest atop the pillar where our house wrens nest when the mockingbird stopped by for a short serenade. He landed right on this old chair, but he saw me and flew quicker than I could click.




I think I have seen a major benefit from the occupancy of the wren family. (Besides the delightful all day serenade that is.)
Wrens makes nests of assorted short sticks.
They nest in cavities.
They don't like company.
Thus they fill all the cavities in the area with sticks to keep out riffraff neighbors. Although this shifted our favorite chickadees from the sitting porch to the honey locust I think it also shifted all the starlings out of the eaves. Before the wrens they found every little crack or crevice and built their messy nests and raised their raucous babies there. This year there are none for which I am very grateful.





How about this thing on my sitting porch? It popped up over a very short time...like one day it wasn't there and about three days later it was. It is right over my lake chair where I like to sit when I get time. Liz is allergic to various vespids so it has got to go. I am going to bring the garden hose down from the calf pens and get it taken care of soon.


Here is a video from last year of the wrens feeding the kids. Liz took it and I posted it then, but I think it is worth a revisit...and the little ones haven't hatched yet this year.....