Fleecy Pink Wren Bed

When I get back from six days away there's a certain amount of angst and guilt because I wasn't here tending to everyone's needs every minute. By everyone, I mean the birds I'm feeding through this awful winter. And of course, it would turn beastly cold soon after I left, temperatures in the single digits, and that can mean doom for Carolina wrens, southern insectivores who have pushed farther north only in the last perhaps 50 years, and whose populations are famously vulnerable to bitter cold and snow. 

I asked my beloved neighbor who waters for me to fill the feeders, and she did, but only the couple of times she came to water. I don't expect anyone to run out twice a day and fill them like I do; to fill them a third time at dusk so the birds have something nice to wake up to. Ridiculous! That's my bag.

Of course, being a human and thinking the entire world revolves around me, I figured my wrens were toast without me there to help them three times a day. And when I got back, I only saw one at the roost box I'd lined with pink Polarfleece. I tried not to think of how lonely it would be without its partner/sibling/friend, but I felt terrible. 

So I set up a vigil to watch, and the first night only one came up.

                               

The second night, only one came up to the box, but there was another wren messing about under the roost box way past bedtime. Huh? 

I opened the garage today and there was a wren inside--not trapped, but sheltering, likely successfully hunting spiders. At the same time, a wren was coming to the Zick dough feeder. This was nice. This was good.

This evening, not wanting to miss a thing, I sat down at 4:23 pm to make sure I'd see the first wren to enter the box. It didn't come up until 4:50 pm, but that tracks, because it was so bright and sunny out for once. The brighter it is, the later they go to roost.

The bird went in and didn't come back out. I waited a bit and nobody else came to join it. So I set to preparing dinner and danged if a second bird didn't fly up from stage right and pop into the fleece! 

Here's its tail. 

So as far as I know, I have a pair of Carolinas sleeping in total warmth inside about five layers of Polarfleece in the roost box by my front door.

This makes me very, very happy. The babies I raised last summer slept every night in pink Polarfleece in their nylon tent in the garage. 

I'd love to think maybe one or even both of these are the same birds. A predilection for pink Polarfleece can't be too common in the wild.

One can never know. But they seem completely unperturbed by me watching and photographing them from just inside the foyer window. And I'm going to make sure they make it through the rest of the winter, come hell or high water. The nights have been in the lower teens and single digits for about the last 8 days, and there's 7" of snow on the ground. And they seem to be doing just fine, with a little help from their biggest fan.