A VISIT FROM JENNY WREN.

Welcome to my garden

Away from history for a moment.  On Spring Bank Holiday this year, the vagaries of the English summer decreed that all day, the rain would fall and often heavily as strong storms.  I sat with my breakfast, bemoaning the fact that many people had planned for a wonderful trip out this day and especially the many children who, on a day off from school, were to be denied access to fun places which they had hoped to visit.

As I sat looking through my kitchen window with little to do myself, I was surprised to see a tiny wren, perched atop the bird table outside in the rain and with a large amount of material in her (his) beak.  When she flew off into my ivy-clad wall nearby, I realised immediately that a nest was in the course of construction, a situation which pleased me no end.  Wrens - the second smallest of our regular breeding birds - are not too common about these parts and those that are about, tend to be quite shy as they flit about the lower branches of the bushes with their highly cocked tails, or even scuttle amongst the leaves on the ground searching for grubs. I have often even mistaken one for a small mouse foraging, before now.

But this was certainly no mouse and it was plain to see that she was fetching beak-fulls of dried moss and leaves, returning to the new location at least every 15 seconds; I was not able to ascertain that both birds were actually involved in the construction work as both male and female are known to be alike.

My reaction was to attempt to photograph the scene, but realised that my smart-phone would not be able to cope with the job from my location in the prevailing conditions, through a window and in the pouring rain, so that this was to be a job for my DSLR.  I was quite pleased with the results, enough so to put them up here, but I was extra pleased that these two little wrens had chosen my garden to raise their family.  I just hope that they will stay and maybe produce a large number of nestlings.