Tuesday, December 11, 2012

WREN RESCUING, AGAIN!


For the second time in the past few days, a Carolina wren has flown into the cottage and found itself trapped. Neither time did we actually see the little bird dart inside. Last's night's visit was only realized some minutes after the fact, though I should have known something was afoot—er, a'wing—after glancing down the hallway from the kitchen and noticing a couple of small woven baskets, which usually sit on a high shelf, scattered on the floor near the back door.

Huh? I thought to myself. Wonder how they got knocked off?

At that moment  I was busy keeping a close eye on a tray of Bruschetta toasting under the broiler. Timing is critical when doing Bruschetta, with perfect browning and bitterly burnt being a matter of mere seconds apart. My supper creations—slices of fresh Vienna bread, rubbed with garlic, salted and peppered, drizzled with olive oil, and topped with bits of cheese, bacon, and chopped veggies—were moments from their delectable completion…and therefore there was simply not time to puzzle over the oddity of the fallen baskets.

Then Myladylove toodled down the hallway and turned left into the laundry room to check the dryer. "Eeeeek!" she yelled, executing a dandy Olympic-class backpedal from a half-squat position into the hall. "There's a bird in here!"

"Probably a wren," I said, flipping on the oven light for a bread check: Thirty more seconds. "You're safe," I added, because while Myladylove is not exactly afraid of birds, she can be disconcerted when meeting one unexpectedly in close proximity.

"Get in here and let this thing out! Now!"

"Just another minute," I said, stalling for the sake of the Bruschetta…and, I must confess, for the entertainment of watching a full-grown woman doing the quick-step avoidance waltz. Which is, I think, an odd reaction from a gal who's spent much of her life outdoors, often camping and living ruggedly, including a few years on an Alaskan island where a trip to bathe in a nearby stream necessitated carting a suitable firearm along as well as soap and towel, just in case a grizzly wandered by. But you'd have thought it was a bloodthirsty pterodactyl she was playing dodge-'em with instead of a half-ounce wren. 

"NOW! This bird will poop in the house!"

"That'd mean the Mayans got it right, I guess," I said. Perhaps it wasn't so much mild phobia as good housekeeping causing the impromptu comedy.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," she said, as I came to rescue both her and the wren—after first, of course, taking my Bruschetta from the oven.

"Poop," I said, grinning as I passed around her in the hall. "I'm referring to the possibility of the wren pooping inside. That happens—and I'd say it's more like a probability, given the way you've been frightening the poor bird with all your didoes and yelping—and sounds to me like you think we'd be looking at the end of the world…meaning the Mayans called it."

My writing room is located directly at the end of the hall across from the laundry. The wren had been flitting from one to the other. "Which way?" I asked Myladylove. She pointed right. I looked in my workroom toward the desk. The wren was sitting atop the Mac; no poop on the screen that I could see. The bird saw me and flew up onto a wire shelf adjacent to the printer. I picked up a camera and snapped a quick shot. The wren flew onto the floor and hopped under the desk.

I stepped out, crossed the hall, turned the laundry room's lights off, then turned the interior hall light off, opened the back door, and turned the outside light on. "You stay there," I told Myladylove, "and herd the wren back down the hall should it head your way."

The wren was perched on the fireplace mantle when I reentered my workroom. The bird didn't seem too frightened. Black eyes gave me a sharp, quizzical scrutiny. "You need to head back to the roost," I explained. The wren flew across the room to the wall of built-in bookcases, where it sat, still keeping me in close watch. "Out this door and turn right," I said, stepping back to be less in the way of the flight path to the back door.

And in a sudden whirr of wings, the tiny Carolina wren was up and out…and gone.

But probably not for long. I'm sure the accidental visits occur because it's electing to roost in the stone cottage's deep and thus protected back door inset. Whenever one of us goes out, the open door and flicked-on porch light prompts the startled wren to fly the wrong way, into the house. That's usually the scenario with visiting wrens. Almost certainly, we'll be shooing the bird out again before too long.

At least I hope so. Carolina wrens are one of my favorite birds.  However, I can't say those sentiments are exactly shared by every member of the household.          

18 comments:

Helen said...

Great shot of it. I love those little things.

Grizz………… said...

Helen…

I can never quite decide whether the Carolina wren or white-throated sparrow is my favorite bird…so I choose both and have two. And thank goodness there are plenty of both (WTSs more in season, of course) around here, filling my days with song.

Gail said...

HI GRIZZ - your Bruschetta sounds so delicious - I can see and smell it from here.

And as far as the wren? Great story of man - woman and the wild coming together! Loved it and your descriptive writing allowed me to be right there, front row as the outcome unfolded.
Love Gail
peace.....

KGMom said...

I read this with bemusement. I agree the fear of a Carolina wren is an over-reaction...but, then, I believe I recall an equally irrational fear of spiders. Am I remembering your phobia correctly?

Robin said...

I've got it! Just take pictures of your bookshelves and I can start searching/ ordering!

Your bird reminds me of the little critters in my Big Box world. Yours are safer.

Grizz………… said...

Gail…

Hey, the Bruschetta was delicious…and a great quick go-to deal when you've been doing other things all day and are suddenly facing nothing ready and supper to do in 20 minutes.

We're a wild bunch here along the river—man, woman, dog, and critters. Makes for some interesting times, too. Glad you enjoyed.


Grizz………… said...

KGMom…

First off, birds are—well, birds. And Carolina wrens are about the cutest litte birds around. Feisty but cute. Spiders and snakes are something else, the two biggies worldwide for sudden cases of spine-tingling, weak-kneed, sweating, screaming, trembling, panicky, debilitating, embarrassing, irrational fear . Almost every human on the planet has a degree of at least instant anxiety upon unexpectedly encountering one or the other.

Snakes? No problem. I have no fear of snakes. I've found snakes in houses, tents, once in my sleeping bag, had cottonmouths drop into all sorts of boats and canoes while fishing down south; encountered them in camps and yards, woods and fields, on the front porch, back deck, and coiled in my mailbox. I once lost a big copperhead in my VW. I can't begin to count the snake—poisonous and non—incidents I've had over the years.

But I'm not fond of spiders…although, I must say, these last few years I've reached a point where it takes something on the order of a small tarantula to get me in full histrionics mode. Your average house spider I just whack with the swatter and pluck or vacuum up the carcass. Wolf spiders the size of teacups and fishing spiders big enough to stalk chipmunks are the tipping point for turning me into Lizzie Borden.

So while both our fears are irrational…I don't believe they're equally irrational. Spiders are WAY more spooky than wrens.

And, much as I hate to admit this, Myladylove isn't really all that scared of birds; the wren just caught her off guard, and kept zooming back and forth across the hall inches above her head. If a giant spider did a similar thing to me, I'd scream like a girl, grab the 12-gauge, and keep firing until I ran out of shells or the walls fell down.

Grizz………… said...

Robin…

That isn't a bookshelf…it's just a shelf near my printer for extra paper, letterheads, and envelopes which invariably becomes a catch-all for books and stuff when I'm trying to clear my desk enough to write. What you see there are just books I'd used recently. My main bookshelf in this room takes up one wall and is 3-deep in books—fiction, poetry, fly fishing, Great Lakes history, wildflowers, photography, lots of essays, and at least a dozen other categories—and I have more bookshelves, here and elsewhere, including a big bunch of reference titles beside the desk, plus books in closets and boxes in the attic. A lifetime of books which, one day soon, I'm probably going to start seriously whittling down. Believe me, you would be amazed—and would never have to look for reading material, regardless of your interests, ever again.

AfromTO said...

Well you have just made your house too welcoming for all..

Grizz………… said...

AfromTO…

House guests and unexpected visitors are like life itself…you gotta expect a bit of bad with the good. Wrens are good; arachnids, not so much.

Scott said...

Carolina Wrens are pretty accommodating. We've had one build a nest in the potting shed for our greenhouse. That fact that lots of people would traipse in and out all day long didn't seem to faze the bird one bit; she produced two fledgelings from this protected spot. You may have a permanent house-guest, especially if it gets cold outside!

Grizz………… said...

Scott…

They sure are. Growing up, the house we lived in had a deep front porch with a roofed portico, and a big metal awning overhanging the smaller back porch. Both were very attractive to roosting Carolina wrens—and they'd soon get to where they allowed you to come and go without fuss.

We always had wrens in the house, especially through the back door, as the awning had a dandy roost perch in each corner which might have been designed with wrens in mind. Should you suddenly flip on the light and open the back door to either go down the steps into the yard, or just look out to see why the dogs were barking, there was every chance a startled wren would fly in. We knew this, so we generally tried to turn the light on and allow a few seconds for the bird to realize we were about to open the door—at which point the wren would usually remain on its perch and we could come and go or look out and it wouldn't fly. But, of course, we all forgot to do this procedure as often as we remembered—and sure as we did, we likely had a wren in the kitchen or living room. What's really funny, it happened so often—with apparently the same birds—that once they were in the house, they'd simply sit calmly on the china cabinet (kitchen) or bookcase (living room) and wait for us to reopen the door…at which point they just flew back out to their perch and settled again to roosting.

I'll always welcome wrens.

Robin said...

Grizz, I had that amount of books once upon a time.

When you begin whittling away, feel free to send me anything and everything you wish.

I would embrace them.

Grizz………… said...

Robin…

Believe it or not, I've already thought of exactly that. I feel about my books much as did Roger Mifflin in "Parnassus On Wheels," that the true bookman's calling is a sort of inspired matchmaking—i.e., to see that the right books get into the proper hands. I've often done that over the years with duplicate titles, review copies, and books which I knew someone else would appreciate farm more than I did. I expect you'd like some of the thoughtful essays, the more descriptive and in-depth adventures, the charming low-key regional where voice melds with family and local history amid honey-sweet prose.

Am I anywhere close?

The fact is, I am going to have to do something eventually. Just to give you an idea of the scope…one big walk-in closet has over 4000 books, and there are many, many more on shelves and in boxes; I'd guess, easily 10,000.

Scott said...

Grizz and Robin: Kali and I are preparing to move in about 5 years. We've got WAY too many books to take with us, so we're gradually whittling away. Also, we've gone cold turkey on buying new books. It was a hard addition to beat, but we just don't have space, and eventually we're going to have to whittle the new ones away, too. So, we go to the library instead.

Grizz………… said...

Scott…

I had a long comment/reply on books and reading in general, but it was too lengthy for Blogger's comments section, so I've saved and shelved it and may use some parts in a post one of these days.

Bottom line is libraries and online resources just don't work as a substitute for most of what I have. The stuff can't be found there, isn't available to read…even if that were the only need. For me, there are other reasons, too, which I tried to explain in the too-long reply.

That said, I'm a constant and lifelong library user. I have a dozen or more mysteries in a big L.L. Bean bag sitting by the door to take back to my local branch today, and will doubtless pick up a similar number as I read a novel every couple of days along with whatever other things. (Right now, lots of Christmas books.)

Libraries (and things like a Kindle reader, which I have, use, and like) probably do work for most folks. Just not quirky, anachronistic ol' me.



Robin said...



Grizz.... dead on.... plus anything you think you might teach me that I'm clueless about. And of course, anything 'nature'.

Grizz and Scott...

When life tanked, it was the books that were hardest to part with. I had to harden the heart and just do it. I've always felt that the book itself was an old friend. I'm not one of those people who reads a book twice, but if I loved it..... I loved it forever and wanted it there on the shelf.

Grizz is right, libraries just don't cover it all. I have books that I pilfered from my high school library forty years ago. Some are gems I picked up that haven't been printed in decades.

As an aside, one of the things I fear about music and books today is that everything is digital. If the web goes down, so much would be lost. We couldn't plop a needle on a turntable or open that heavy tome and still read.

Still, libraries are wonderful places (obviously learned that in high school). But my favorite place? A good used bookstore. Have one near me, and wish I had more money to spend there.

And Grizz... thank you for the thought.

Grizz………… said...

Robin…

Growing up chronically ill, I spent more weeks at home, bedfast, than I did in school or being able to play outside. But my parents—Mom, especially—began reading to me practically from birth, and taught me to love books from infancy. I was reading on my own at a fairly high level before I started kindergarten. We always had a fair number of books of various sorts at home, but Mom would take the trolly into town every week and bring me home a shopping bag full of children's books from the library. Pretty soon I'd literally read my way through the children's section which filled most of the library's sprawling basement. At that point I got special permission to receive an "adult" borrower's card long before the mandatory 12 year age minimum…I think at either age 6 or 7. This meant when I was able, I could browse the shelves of the main library—all three floors. It was a magical place. Of course, in practice, again it was usually Mom who took the trolly downtown and picked out books for me—though occasionally I was well enough and Dad would take me on a Saturday, or we'd stop on the way back from the doctor's office, also downtown.

Books became for for me a window to that which I couldn't experience first-hand, to adventure and excitement, times and places, to worlds beyond my imagination. I read all the the classics, including Huck Finn and Treasure Island and Robin Hood and King Arthur. I lived through books; escaped through books. And I honestly think books literally saved my life. I read constantly, widely…and still do. Libraries were where I put down those roots. Then I was introduced to used books, and OMG I couldn't believe the stuff they held—treasures, old tales, authors such as Edgar Rice Burroughs and A. Merritt, and all the rest of the old pulp writers. I discovered science fiction and fantasy. And then came mysteries. And then mainstream fiction and everything else.

Some years ago I bought a copy—discarded from my old public library—of Arthur Conan Doyle's Professor Challenger Stories. It was the same (and only) copy of that title the library ever owned. I might have been the only kid who weaseled his way into the shadowy non-public stacks, found that book, and checked it out repeatedly. How could any kid with an imagination not love The Lost World, The Land of the Mist, or the Poison Belt!

Anyway, books to me are more than just objects…or maybe they're objects that are more than just the stories they contain. I dunno. But, like you, I do want those special ones in my house, on my shelves, available to hold and read (unlike you, I do read certain books over and over) and if nothing more, just to look at for comfort and to calm and reground me when I forget who I am.

I can part with some of them…but not all. I bet you understand.