Stealing the Wrens

I’ve wanted to steal the wrens from my neighbors for a long time. The elderly couple does not live next door anymore, but have moved away to be close to their children.  I am happy for their good fortune in family but sad for my loss of their presence.  I always coveted their wrens, the way they trilled from deep in the ivy hedge, or scolded from atop the rose trellis, or popped in and out of the little birdhouse attached to the garage while Ellen weeded her flower garden.  

The neighbors two doors down have had wrens, too, which jauntily preach from atop a swinging birdhouse that hung from a pole.

It was a student in my Ecocriticism class last fall who emboldened me to change my ways and hang birdhouses in my yard.  In deep winter, he brought to class a wood duck box that he had made as part of his final project.  From a dingy classroom in the frozen north, he anticipated spring and summer and was full of hope that a wood duck family would set up shop along his stretch of the Red River. 

I’d already taken steps toward making my yard friendly for birds.  I set out birdbaths and planted shrubs and trees where the previous owners had, perversely, taken them all out.  But I’d stopped short of putting out birdseed, because my neighborhood is overrun with cats, including a swanky-looking Siamese that everyone has nicknamed “Killer” even though his real name is “Buzz.”

After my student presented his wood duck box to the class, I picked up a wren box and placed it out to weather the lean days of winter.  The no-frills plain box swung in the harsh winter wind and held steady with a load of snow on its rooftop.  

Dreams of stealing the neighbor’s wrens motivated my mid-February purchase of an “eco-friendly” wren box from Jeffers Pet.  

And at the height of wren anticipation in mid-May I impulsively bought a deluxe wren “log cabin” with a fancy skeleton key perch from a vendor at a bird festival.  The trio of boxes hangs above the flower garden by the garage.

In late May the male wren appeared, his bell-bright warble a dead give-away to his elfin return.  He fussed and prattled from the overgrown shrub by the three-season porch.  I stuffed a decrepit wren box in the heart of the shrub and fastened it tight with a fuzzy green pipecleaner.  He didn’t like it. 

I went away for a week, convinced that I had failed to entice the wrens.  When I returned, I dropped my bags in the front hallway, opened the windows, and sank into the couch.  A steady spree of burbling and bubbling emanated from the yard, and a male wren was showing his mate the three nest boxes by the garage.  In and out of each box she went, the male chattering all the while from atop the shepherd’s crook. 

I don’t know if the wrens have positively selected one of my boxes or if my boxes are merely a few among many that the male has chosen for his lady to inspect.  The male struggled to get a large twig into the no-frills box yesterday, and a quick peek reveals quite a nest pad cushioning its cavity.  This morning the yard is filled with the wrens’ cascading watery notes.  That’s more than my student can say about his wood duck box.  Last I heard, his wood ducks were merely “in the vicinity,” but his class project sits empty.