Sunday, June 20, 2010

A busy wren house


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Baby House Wren
House Wren
House Wren with Fecal Sac (Cleaning the nest)

One disadvantage of living on a lake is all of the insects, unless you eat insects. The house wrens find the location ideal to raise a family. Chris first saw lots of feeding on Monday at the wren house and heard the baby birds chirping. We set up the bird cam but the photos didn't come out very good. So, we set up the DSLR with a remote control shutter release and waited. The birds feed every few minutes, so we didn't have to wait too long and we are happy to see each insect get consumed by these chirping baby birds. Both parents feed, but we can't tell them apart.

We also saw something we hadn't expected. The birds clean the nest by carrying off "fecal sacs" that the babies produce. These "disposable bird diapers" are produced by the babies' digestive system the first few days and make it easier to keep the nest clean. The parents drop them far away from the nest so the droppings don't leave clues about the location of the bird nest.

I know we are posting a bit too many pictures, but there are few hundred we didn't post.


Baby House Wren

House Wren      House Wren Feeding

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