The Wrens and the Garage

When we lived on Physic Hill Road there was a garage window with a hole in it; it was too small for a crow to fly through but just big enough for a wren to negotiate. Wrens are always on the lookout for a safe place to build a nest and one year a pair of wrens found the safety of our garage – a nest they did built and young ones they did have.

The garage had an upstairs storage area, safe from our comings and goings, nice and sheltered, an almost perfect place for a nest; I say “almost” because while daddy and mommy wren had thought about most everything, there was one thing they hadn’t thought about – how were their fledglings going to exit the garage? After all, it takes an experienced wren to locate and fly through a small hole in a window.

When Vickie heard the sound of the baby wrens flying and chirping and investigated she saw the problem – they were flying from wall to wall and from ceiling to floor but they couldn’t get out. No doubt mommy and daddy had tried to show them the way, but to no avail – the brood was too inexperienced to thread a needle or to fly through a small opening.

We opened the garage door, we opened the door into the workshop that was part of the garage building, we pulled the attic stairs down, and then we went wren herding. Vickie caught one of the little birds in her hands and carried it outside and the rest were encouraged to vacate by our making them uncomfortable in the attic – after all, even a bird can only take hearing “shoo-shoo” so many times. From one end of the attic to the other we went until the birds finally found the open stairs and flew down to the next level and then found an open door into the outdoors.

The wren parents meant well, but if we hadn’t realized their babies were trapped in the building they all would have died. Not a pleasant thought.

It’s one thing to protect those we love, it’s another when our desire to protect them traps them.