It was cold, gloomy and I was standing in the rain.
No. This is not a metaphor of my life. It was, in fact, a real life situation: one experienced on the most recent Christmas Bird Count.
No this isn’t a plea for pity. No, I’m not inviting your appraisal of my sanity. I am, after the fashion of a writer, setting the stage for the experience that followed.
Suddenly. Out of the dark and dank, the silver toned notes of a song bird cut a path through the gloom and pierced my heart. It sounded like this:
Tea kettle, tea kettle, tea kettle.
And some readers are thinking: “Ahhhh, it’s just another Carolina Wren fer cripes sake!”
And I say: “Oh ye of jaded sense. Diminish not this envoy of light-heartedness with your shallow and constricted principles.”
(This is just an elaborate way of saying. “Shut up. Get a life.”) If you can’t muster any appreciation for a bird that sings all year, in any kind of conditions, find another avocation.
I love Carolina Wrens. First, because they are wrens! Gram for gram, there are few birds on the planet as saucy as a wren. In Cape May, we’re lucky enough to have multiple species.
House Wren, which is a common summer resident of suburban yards and wooded edge. Winter Wren, a busy little mote of brown energy that spends about half of its life burrowing into nooks and crannies. Marsh Wren, a common summer and rare winter resident of fresh and salt marsh where rank weeds flourish. Sedge Wren, an uncommon bordering on rare migrant and winter resident along the upper edges of salt marshes.
And the Carolina Wren, a big, plump, ruddy-wren with a big, loud, omnipresent voice.
I remember the first Carolina Wrens I ever saw–and heard. They were in Newcomerstown, Ohio. I was visiting an old war buddy of my dad’s and his southeastern Ohio farm was in what was then the northernmost reaches of the bird’s range.
Never mind what war!
When I was a kid birder, Carolina Wrens were not part of the avifauna of North Jersey. In fact even now they lead a somewhat precarious life in northern New Jersey. If winters are mild, the birds thrive. Get one or two harsh winters, the population gets clobbered and the birds take years to recover.
One of the neat things about wrens is that pairs stay together all year and they stay on territory. That’s why they sing all year.
Another neat thing about Carolina Wrens is that they’ll nest (and roost) almost everywhere.
The pair in Ohio nested in an old couch. They shared the entrance to their tucked in stuffing nest with bumblebees. For the last several years we’ve had a Carolina Wren roosting in the abandoned Barn Swallow nest fastened to the support post of our porch. When the lights go down, the Wren snuggles in.
Carolina Wrens are not the only birds that sing in Cape May in winter. At dawn, White-throated Sparrows usually pipe up a rendering of their dirge to “Ol’ Sam Peabody.” Northern Mockingbirds are sometimes given to song (particularly on warm days) and every once in a while, now, I hear the desultory notes of a Northern Cardinal’s song.
But winter or summer; rain or shine, there is one bird I can always count on to be singing in winter. This is...
Or as I expressed and explained it to my friend Jay Darling, Esq. who once accompanied me on the Cape May Christmas Bird Count;
All morning, every time a bird would sing, Jay asked: “Pete. What’s that one?”
And I’d say: “Carolina Wren.”
Four hours, 20 wrens and one lunch later we were back in the field. And Jay said:
“Pete. What’s that one?”
And I said nothing. Instead I raised my eyebrows. Gestured with my hand, palm up. Jay got the hint and the identification correct.
“Carolina Wren?” he asked more than said.
It only took three or four more wrens before the question mark was replaced by a period and by the end of the day his pronouncement was bold enough to rate an exclamation point.
Carolina Wren! Neat bird.