[texbirds] Carolina Wren Nest
- From: Melissa Wood <mmwtx@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: Texas Birds <texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, San Antonio Birds <SATXbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2013 11:01:41 -0700 (PDT)
Hi fellow birders,
Some of you know that I had a Carolina Wren make a nest in a plastic tub on my
patio table on my front deck. It took her several weeks to build the nest and
then I thought she had abandoned it as it seemed like that the nest was built,
but no eggs. Finally, she started laying eggs and originally, I just took
pictures of the eggs; she laid 1 egg per day for 4 days. Then as my vacation
became closer, I realized that the eggs would hatch while I was gone and I
wanted to keep track of what was happening with the nest. Setting up a web cam
seemed a logical solution, but since I live in the hill country (Pipe Creek)
and do not have access to high speed DSL internet, setting up a web camera with
an online video feed was not something I could do. Thanks to a great employee
at Best Buy, she told me about a security system that uses cameras and you can
hook up to your computer to record video. So I just simply placed the camera
in front of the nest
and hooked up my computer and viola! I have video footage of the nest and
activities of the birds. The video does not record continually; it is motion
activated only. It also has infrared and records at night whenever it detects
movement. And the best part is that it allows me a close look at what is going
on, without disturbing the birds at all.
So here is a summary of the activities:
First egg laid Wednesday, March 20th. Subsequent eggs were each laid 1 per day
for the next 3 days. The parents both took turns laying on the eggs, although
it appears to me that the female stayed longer and all throughout the night.
The male would bring her treats; a wide variety of bugs, beetles, moths, worms,
scorpions, spiders, caterpillars and grasshoppers. Even after the eggs were
all laid, the pair continued to bring a variety of sticks, hairs, paper and
material to improve the nest. They did this for about the next 4 days. Given
the location of the nest and how deep it is, it's very difficult to see into
the nest except at night with the infrared. During the incubation period, at
first, she would wake every hour or so to turn the eggs; but as it got closer
for the eggs to hatch, she was waking every 1/2 hour or so to diligently turn
each egg and then settle down to nestle on top of them.
As I suspected, the eggs hatched when I was gone. So I came home to find hours
and hours of video feed. From what I can tell, they started hatching on
Sunday, April 7th and hatched throughout the day. I can clearly see the mother
wrestling with the egg shell (and in some cases eating it) and also removing it
from the nest. Interestingly, it appears as though all 4 eggs hatched on the
same day. I would have thought that since each egg was laid on a separate day,
that they would hatch in a similar fashion. But from what I can see in the
video, all 4 babies are in the nest Sunday evening.
The babies are now 1 week old today. Initially, the parents brought small
items for them like part of a beetle or a worm. Those days are long gone as
now it is very clear they are eating whole things....beetles, worms,
grasshoppers and even a small snake. And they are growing fast; now their eyes
are open and you can see feathers as opposed to just bare skin and fuzz. One
of the most interesting things has been learning about the fecal sac. I guess
I just assumed that the baby birds would just poop in the nest. But apparently
they create something called a fecal sac, which the parents then remove from
the nest. I guess not all species of birds do this but Carolina Wren's
definitely do as I have lots of video footage of this process. The parent
brings a morsel for one of the babies; the baby eats it and then promptly turns
around and expels this fecal sac that the parent then removes from the nest.
Surprisingly, the parent bird will also
eat this fecal sac more often than taking it from the nest....I'm assuming
there must be something valuable in it for them?? Pretty interesting and if you
want to learn more about this you can google it and read about it on Wikipedia.
Also, they are leaving the babies alone in the nest at night now and hunting in
the dead dark of the night and bringing them food. I'm not quite sure how they
are finding worms and other things in the darkness, but both parents are
hunting periodically overnight to bring the babies food.
I have lots of video snippets mostly that are around 10-30 seconds in length.
If any of you would like to see some, let me know...I'm happy to share. It's
been a very interesting learning experience for me and I think other bird
lovers would find it interesting too!
I think the babies will fledge in about a week and I will keep you posted on
the progress!
Happy birding,
Melissa
Pipe Creek, TX
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