One of my bigger Ranch projects this spring was to build Sharon a deer proof enclosure for her garden (might have gone a little overboard as it turned out to be 38’x14′). I wanted to make it a little more “homey” so on 30 April, I installed a brand new bird house on a east facing post. I was hoping to attract the bluebirds we’d been seeing and that next year they would use the box. Well, we were blown away when, on the very next day from installing the box, it had a resident making a home, a House Wren!
What’s really amazing to us is not that it took up residence that fast, but that we had never seen nor heard a House Wren at The Ranch, ever! We have no clue where it came from and what we’d really like to know, how’d it find us and that new house so fast! It took the little guy no time to overfill his new home with “stuff” and start advertising that he was available. And man, can that guy sing! He serenades Sharon when she’s working in the garden. He’s at the other end of the house singing outside the office window. He’s at our bedroom window at 05:40 singing at the top of his lungs until nearly sunset. And here we are mid June and still, no mate. I did watch him once copulating with a House Wren on his little perch which had me thinking he had found a mate. But I dunno … she left him as he’s still singing his heart out. In fact, he’s at my window looking at me as I type.
We love his presence and he is such a character. We wish him luck as its been fun to watch our new resident look for love!