Rock Wrens
Some of my favorite summer visitors are the tiny, melodious rock wrens that arrive early in the spring and often stay until the first snowflakes fall. According to some sites, they are a species in decline with a loss of almost 50% of their number in the last half century due, primarily, to loss of habitat.
I am happy to say that decline is not evident on my place where I often get to observe multiple successful nesting pair each summer season.
Rock wrens pick up small, flat pieces of sandstone in their beaks and use them to build a wall reducing the size of the opening, probably to prevent predators from entering and stealing their chicks.
Rock wrens may have two or three broods in a season which means they are busy collecting bugs – usually grasshoppers – throughout the summer months.
Papa wren returns with a grasshopper to feed his young. The males look more and more disheveled as they keep up the frantic pace of feeding their young.
Rock wrens build unique nests in nooks and crannies. Usually these are located in the sandstone cliffs that surround my home but occasionally, the wrens opt for less natural openings. This summer, one pair decided to build their nest behind a chest that sits on the bunkhouse deck.
Papa wren delivering a grasshopper meal to his offspring.
What goes in, must come out. Waste is removed by the wren after he finishes dropping off dinner.
Once the 4-6 eggs have hatched, the male wren works frantically to deliver food. Over the years I have timed the rate of return and discovered it averages about two minutes between each going and coming. By my calculations, that means Papa delivers about 500 grasshoppers/day to his young or about 7000 grasshoppers between the time they hatch and the day they fledge!
Occasionally he will take a minute longer than normal to return. When that happens, Mama wren will emerge to call for him and if he doesn’t answer quickly enough, she will go out and catch a grasshopper on her own.
Worried Mama
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