Baby Wren

I love wrens. They're such bold and perky little things, with huge voices in proportion to their tiny size.

I hung some wren nestboxes out in the front of the house, and wrens promptly took up residence. I so enjoy listening to the babies loudly proclaiming their desperate need for food, and watching the mother sitting on a nearby branch yelling at me to go away so she can feed her young.

The other morning I was down at the barn feeding the animals, and I heard a bird chirping from the back of the barn, up in the rafters. I didn't think much about it, because birds do sometimes come into the barn, and sometimes they've even made nests in the rafters. But while I was mucking and ended up back near where the sound was coming from, I looked up and saw the bird sitting in the corner, surrounded by spider webs.

It was semi-dark, so I couldn't see it very well. I figured it was just lost, so I cleared out the spider webs and moved away to finish my chores, thinking it would fly out of the barn.

A little later, as I was putting down new bedding, I heard the chirping coming from the floor in the stall next to me. The little bird had flown down into the straw. I watched it attempt to fly back up again, but it was unable to fly up more than a foot or so. I started to realize that what I was seeing was a fledgling that had either flown into the barn and gotten stuck, or had been in one of the nests and was just learning to fly. I also realized that what I was seeing was a baby wren.

I've had some painful lessons about the merits of letting nature take its course, so I was just going to leave the little bird alone to figure things out. I was about to finish up and leave the barn, but I decided to put down a little more bedding first. It's fortunate that I did, because when I came back from getting a bucket of bedding pellets upstairs, Smoky, one of the barncats, was in the stall watching the baby bird. She was creeping closer, getting ready to pounce, and the little bird was just sitting there in the straw next to the wall. I don't think it was aware of its danger.

Time to intervene. I hurried around to the front of the stall and opened the door, yelling at Smoky, who ignored me at first. But as I got within a couple of feet of her, she remembered she was scared of me and ran away. I grabbed for the little bird, which did its best to fly away but got stuck in a corner, bumbling into a bunch more spider webs. Poor little thing was practically blinded by the webs at that point.

I plucked the little bird out of the midst of the webs and carried it gently outside. Needless to say, it was very distraught, cheeping and struggling in my hand, no doubt certain it was about to be eaten for dinner. I cleaned the webs off its face and carried it out to a clump of small trees and honeysuckle vines along a fence. A day earlier, I'd noticed an adult wren sitting near that spot, loudly scolding a cat, so I figured that was probably the mother.

I opened my hand, and the little bird hopped into the vines and disappeared. I just hope it was able to find its mother, but I think if it hadn't I probably would have heard it calling for her later.

I love these little adventures where I get to interact briefly with nature. It's such an honor to get close to one of these wild critters, and especially to actually be able to help one.

The Barncats

China and Sherbet waiting for breakfast

When we moved to Carroll County in 2005, we inherited a colony of barncats. They were all feral, except for two which were semi-tame. The previous owner told us he had caught some and had them neutered but was never able to catch all of them.

The colony originally consisted of nine cats. Over time, four have died, one disappeared, and four new ones have moved in. Five of the original cats are still here.

We've made progress over the years. When we first moved here, the feral barncats would never come in the barn when I was there. They sat outside, a good distance from the barn, no matter what the weather, and waited for me to leave so they could come into the barn and eat.

But it's amazing what canned cat food will do.

I started putting out canned food when it was necessary to catch a cat and take it to the vet. As most cat owners know, once a cat gets a taste of canned food, there's no going back (unless you are much better at resisting cat pressure than I am). So I've continued to put out canned food for them, thinking that if I do need to catch a cat in a hurry, that's the best way to do it.

It's also a good way to tame a cat, although it takes a very long time and a lot of patience.

Most of the cats live in the barn now and don't leave when I'm there. Two of the cats are particularly fond of the canned food and continue to get braver about eating even while I'm close by. The orange cat in the picture above, whom I call Sherbet, has gotten so bold that she'll actually let me touch her with the tip of my finger while she's eating. I plan to eventually be able to pet her, although it may take another year or two at the rate we're going.

The barncats are fascinating, and I keep thinking I'd like to write a book of stories about them.

It seems like in any colony of barncats, there's going to be one reigning male. When we first met these cats, the dominant male was Julius, a skinny orange cat with numerous battle scars. He was not a very nice cat, either. The other cats avoided him, because if he got near them, he would turn and chase them and wrestle them to the ground, and there would be horrendous screeching from the cat who was being attacked. I don't think he actually hurt them, but they sounded like they were being killed. It was probably his way of reminding them who was the boss.

That's how he treated the females, anyway. I would imagine things were much worse if another male got in his way.

I wrote about Julius in a blog I started a few years ago that I can no longer figure out how to access. His story is here.

In future blog posts, I do want to tell some stories about the other cats, if for no other reason than to memorialize these interesting and endearing critters.

Introduction

From the time I was a child, I always wanted to live in the country. It seems like some people just have a fascination with nature, and that was certainly me. I was always pestering my widowed mother to sell our suburban home and get a farm in the country. She never did, and it was not until I'd been an adult for a long time that I finally realized my dream.

Fortunately, I married a man who shared my dream, and we are now blessed to have a six-acre property in beautiful, rural Carroll County, Maryland. We're surrounded by farms, woods, and wonderful views. Our property has a stream and an acre or so of woods, so there is plenty of wildlife here. We have an aging horse, two miniature donkeys, two wonderful dogs, and a bunch of barn cats. We are privileged to dwell among all manner of interesting critters, from deer to raccoons to foxes to squirrels and all kinds of birds, insects, amphibians, and fungi.

I love studying these fascinating critters. Every now and then I wonder about them, asking such questions as, "Where do flies go in the wintertime and how is they can be resurrected on a sunny day in January?" "What do crickets eat?" and "What are those orange and black bugs that are all over the side of the garage?"

So I decided to create a blog where I can answer some of those questions and record some of my day-to-day observations.

If you live in Carroll County and would like to join me in my search, share some stories, or raise a few questions of your own, you are most welcome. And of course even if you don't live in Carroll County, I hope you find this blog entertaining and educational and tell some stories from where you live, too.