Last night on Twitter, Mr. Neil posted a photo alerting me that the house wrens in the squirrel proof feeder hatched. Look at those little naked chicks, they look fresh from the shell!
Look at the wee little toes! It looks like three of them have hatched and last I checked, there were four eggs. I’ll be out on Wednesday to indulge in my fried green tomato habit (my all time favorite food outside of roasted eggplant with parmesan cheese…and well, bacon–but really, bacon should always go without saying). Anyway, I’ll be out tomorrow to check on the hatchlings.
I looked at my original blog post on July 13 when I predicted that incubation would start on the 14th and twelve days of incubation. And what do you know? Yesterday, July 26 would have been 12 days of incubation! That means in two weeks or around August 8, the wrens will probably fledge. Then they have lots to learn on how to feed themselves and then the will commence to migratin’. They have a lot of work to do in a very little amount of time.
I never got to see the chicks (wrenlets, lol) but sure could hear them! And I didn’t get to see them leave, either…but I sure enjoyed them while they were around!
You commented about their tiny toes. Some few years ago, before I went into the “dark side” of bird husbandry (falconry) I used to raise and show finches. We slip tiny leg bands on those tiny legs at about 5 to 7 days. The window to do that really is just about 2 days, and then the legs and feet are too big to allow the process. Just amazing how birds grow so very fast.
Eee! Babies!
Words from the wise: house wren nestlings are very jumpy in the days before they are ready to fledge. We’re always able to band baby trees swallows, but we skip the house wrens. I wouldn’t recommend checking on them after a week or so, or you might wind up with an explosion of not-quite-ready-to-fledge babies!
Nice to see that the little wrens are fine
My favourite kind of bird!
Oh wow!
We used to have a pair of wrens in my parent’s garden – amazingly territorial little things.
Am I right in thinking that your house wrens are different to the ones we have here in the UK? Maybe slightly bigger? I hope these chicks do well.
I’ve been seeing some tiny birds in my yard. They are about a tablespoon of bird.