Babies!

We (meaning mostly me) have been excited for weeks as a nesting pair of wrens chose a spot close to our front door to set up house.

In years past I've played door chicken with wrens nesting in a bag hanging beside the door of my car in our garage, discouraged wrens wanting to build in the bumper of a car that was seemingly going nowhere most of the time, and wrangled wren fledglings off a back deck area where they were in danger of being trampled upon by a very "interested" labrador retriever.

This year the wrens actually chose a bird house as a nest home.  Go figure.

The baby birds are now big enough to see without disturbing the house.  This means I am obligated to check on them at intervals ranging from about every 4 hours to every 15 minutes, depending upon my mood, my occasional "need" to go out the front door, and my ability to secure a willing "go-see" partner.

The wren parents feel free to fuss a bit at me, which they are obviously capable of doing with their mouths full, but they do not seem especially freaked out by our comings and goings.  Even the babies apparently get bored when my shadow does not materialize into another beak offering them goodies to eat.

In other critter news, I surrendered to the squirrels and set up a feeding station specifically for them, in hopes they'd be too satiated to tinker with our cages set around tomatoes and strawberries. 

I do wonder if I'm not simply reinforcing the idea that everything in our yard is set out just for their eating/playing pleasure, but so far, so good.  The squirrels are happy with the easy gets, and the tomatoes and strawberries are getting a second chance to mature on the plants.