They're Baaack!

I was in the garage yesterday morning filling up the chicken's feed dish. I had just emptied the old bag and reached down to open the new one when out of the corner of my eye I saw a little bird fly out of the garage. I didn't see where it came from but I thought it was a Carolina Wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus).

Ever since the second brood fledged from the nest in our garage last year, we see the wrens fluttering around or leaving the garage. I've kept my eye on last year's nest, but it hasn't been used again. I think since the two broods were raised there, they like to hang around.

I put down the chicken feed and started looking around. The bird had flown out of the garage very near the floor, so I looked in that area. We have a couple of bags on the floor there. One of them is a bag of ground oyster shells which we use to supplement our chicken's diet with calcium. I noticed a twig sticking out of the bag. I peeked inside the bag and saw a wren nest!

Note the suspicious twig sticking out the top.

There are five eggs in the nest and they're definitely Carolina Wren's, just like last year. You can only see three in this photo. I didn't want to move the bag too much although I did open up the hole a bit. This was the best photo I could get because the nest is pretty far down and it's dark until the flash fires. The camera's auto focus didn't work well and I had to try several times with manual focus to get this one.

The male wren makes several nests in an area and the female chooses which one to use. It's thought this behavior is to confuse predators as to which nest contains the eggs. I'm not sure about her choice this year. Last year the nest was on a shelf about 4 feet off the floor. This one is right on the floor. If Dixie, our Border Collie, finds out there are chicks in there, she will devour them.

I'm going to ask the bird experts in the Hays County Master Naturalist chapter about the best approach to take. We can try to leave the garage door just cracked open. That will allow the birds to come and go, but keep Dixie out. The problem with that is it will get very hot especially in the afternoon because the garage door faces west. We can try lifting the bag off the floor onto a shelf, but I don't know how far we can move it, if at all, without disturbing the mother.

I guess we've lost the use of that crushed oyster bag through the fall. Oh well, the babies come first.