Introducing the Carolina Wren

In this blog "Introducing the Carolina Wren" we will share photographs and information about one of our favorite birds: the Carolina Wren.

An adult Carolina Wren perched in the morning sunlight

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Carolina Wrens are some of our favorite birds here at Birds of West Cobb! They have so much energy, a fun cheery song in the mornings, and their pose with their little tail pointing nearly straight up in the air. We’ve heard their different calls so often that we can tell their “Alarm” sound from their standard “Good morning world!” song. This could be because a hawk is near, or some other predator like a cat or snake. I like to think of it as Nature’s “backyard warning alarm system”. Additionally, wrens are extremely beneficial and eat a TON of small garden-variety insects, spiders, caterpillars, and butterflies/moths, even ants on occasion.

An adult Carolina Wren inspects my Nikon Camera while I interrupt his mealworm breakfast.

When we first started feeding the local wildlife at our home, we had a small table on our front porch. On the top of the table, we had a small glass vase with some fake flowers in it. This vase and fake flowers had been here for several years and had never moved, aside from us washing the pollen off each spring. This porch is also a covered porch that we wouldn’t even use for a week or two at a time because we often exited through the garage instead. So it was likely being ‘updated’ by our new tenant for a couple of days, maybe even a week before we noticed.

An adult Carolina Wren sits on a plate on a chilly morning

Mid-Spring that year we noticed that the glass vase suddenly had some pine straw sticking out of the top. Upon further inspection, we realized that birds had built a nest down inside this vase, between the fake flower stems! We were so lucky to have this table sitting directly in front of one window so we could peer out, between the blinds, from our living room and watch Wren E. Wren and Mrs. Wren E. Wren protect the eggs, and then later fly in and out constantly feeding the children over the next few weeks.

Close-up photo of a Carolina Wren which visits daily for his nutritional requirements (eating dried mealworms).

One evening while the birds were away briefly, I counted 5 eggs in the nest. They were so small that it was incredible to think they would be bouncy, animated little birds in barely a month. Sadly not all 5 eggs hatched though and they ended up with 3 young birds.

A Carolina Wren looks like an Angry Bird character while choosing the best dried mealworm from the plate.

Wrens will nest sometimes in low-lying shrubbery, patio furniture, brush piles, vases apparently, and sometimes within small birdhouses. Over the years I’ve even seen them nest in garage shelving, between tools and cleaners. In this case, they chose a nest that was perfectly placed. It was not in our direct path and we were pretty unlikely to disturb the parents or the young.

They grow up so fast! I was washing our cars in the driveway a few weeks later and looked around the corner toward the porch and noticed one small juvenile wren was on the deck floor, under the table! I was afraid that something happened to the nest at first and I wanted to help somehow. I heard the parents making their alarm call at this point and realized they were alarmed by me, being so close to their young. I took a step back and the fledgling flapped a few times and was mid-air in the blink of an eye. This little wren flew right past my face and landed on the roof rack on my car. A few minutes later the other two fledglings popped out of the top of the vase and followed suit.

A Carolina Wren with suet crumbs on top of his beak perches before flying down to the deck to look for bugs.

It has been several years now, and we’ve had them nest in several containers on our porch since, but we always think back to that first time with the glass vase and our shock when we found the tuft of pine straw protruding from the fake flowers.

This photo shows a “Winter Wren”, which is a different species

The Winter Wren often can be seen during migration, or over the Winter-to-Early Spring period where they will generally be found in the Southern states. They are shaped and sized very closely to the Carolina Wren, however they are a different species and almost appear as if they were dirty or have mottled feathers like a fledgling Carolina Wren might have.

A Winter Wren sings while perched on a branch

You may have heard someone refer to them as a "House Wren", but that too is a different species. In fact, there are NINE species of Wren in North America. While they have similarities between them, they are all unique in their size, coloration, calls and esapecially their diet! While 9 species may seem like a lot, there are actually 88 species of Wrens worldwide! (link to referencing material on wikipedia).