Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Empty Nest

Early this morning I checked the wren nest outside my kitchen window.
The baby wrens were in and out of the nest but still being fed by their parents.
 Around ten o'clock, I heard a great commotion of wren song.
I was painting in the garage with the door open,
and I resisted the impulse to drop my paint brush and see what was going on.
Around 2:30 I checked the nest: empty.
Our little wren fledglings were gone.
And then ...

File:Carolina Wren (4463577775).jpg
By Mike's Birds (Carolina Wren  Uploaded by Magnus Manske) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

A tremendous storm with thunder, strong wind, and rain arrived about 3:30 today.
I wondered about the little wrens and hoped they were safe.
I've read that even song birds are built to weather strong storms,
and I reassured myself that they at least had a few hours head start.
But one never knows.
And then ...

This evening I heard a wren singing its little heart out from the trees behind the house.
I'm going to take that as a sign that all is well.
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