Adventures in Bird Watching: a Journal

Monday, April 19, 1999 at 9:00 A.M. I was at my computer keyboard, compiling a letter. Suddenly a beautiful little bird landed on the top rail of the stairs just inches from my office window. He was so close I could see his deep black eyes.

He was the most beautiful shade of rust. Light, as if the sunlight was glistening through the feathers. They seemed to glimmer. His tail was narrow and long. His body, plump. He has a white & black streak over his eye. His beak was narrow and curved. He sang a beautiful song. Suddenly his mate joined him and they sang together for a time before flying off. It was as if they carried a message that all was well.

Tuesday, April 20, 1999

As we were walking to our truck to take our BI-weekly grocery run, Jim decided to show me the watering wand he had purchased for our hanging flower baskets. It was laying on a shelf in a doorless cabinet we had sitting on the side of the house, mixed in with other gardening paraphernalia.

As he reached in, untangling the items, something brushed his hand. Suddenly a bright, auburn bird streaked out from the shelf and flew into the trees. We had discovered the nest of our songster friends.

The nest was shaped like an oven with a hole in the front. It was made of mud and leaves. It was about the size of a child's toy football. It was nestled in the corner of a lower shelf, behind a container of roundup and next to some baskets that all but hid it from sight. We hoped that the bird had not been frightened away permanently.

When I had told Jim about the birds he had thought to himself that I was mistaken for he had never known of birds that sing duets, especially since the birds I had identified were known to live in South America in Argentina, Trinidad, the Falken islands, the southern most tip of the continent. What would they be doing here in South Carolina. After seeing the nest, which was something he had never seen before, he agreed with me, that it must be an ovenbird.

Wednesday, April 21, 1999

I took my camera out with its telephoto lens and took pictures of the nest. When Jim came home he had to get the gas can which was stored on the shelf near the nest and while doing so he actually saw the female, framed in the entrance to the nest as she was sitting on the nest. He said he could see her profile with her shinny black eye and the special marking over the eye, just like the picture in the bird book.

He had done some research on the net about North American ovenbirds. He said that none of those birds were the ones we had in our cupboard. Our birds had special markings that matched the picture of the Rufous Ovenbirds, (furnarius rufus) {above left}. This rendering was taken from the book, "Birds: Their Life, Their Ways, Their World" by Readers Digest 1976.

We are going to watch and document everything we can about these birds.

Saturday April 30, 1999

We have babies! I was walking up the walkway past the cupboard and I could hear a faint twittering of the newly hatched babies. One of the parents was in the nest feeding them and they were in a feeding frenzy. When the bird flew from the nest, the sounds stopped.

We have also gotten photos of these parent birds. They seem to frequent our deck railings where they hunt for insects. I have been able to get many photos using my zoom lens from inside the house. I will be putting them up as soon as they come back from the developer. Then, someone who knows birds can see what we have and advise us as to whether they are a wren or an ovenbird. Jim has now set up his camera on a tripod to try and catch them on their favorite perch on our deck.

There is a possibility that they could be a winter wren, however it is yet to be shown. They have yellow orange legs and claws. We can hardly wait for the photos to arrive!

Here is the photo of our bird. It's a Wren!

We saw a cat near the nest and scared it away. However, a couple of days later the nest was abandoned. All that remained were a few broken egg shells. It seemed like a very short time between hatching and fledging. Is this normal?

We still see at least one of the little birds that likes to hunt our deck for insects. He seems to have a nest nearby for he stays around. I don't see two of them at all. Just the one.

More on this Wren.......... and other birds

Stay tuned for photos of our resident humming birds