A Fern, A Nest, A Home: Carolina Wrens in the Staghorn

A no fuss birdhouse. This photo was taken at our home in Bethesda on June 29, 2014, through our dining room window. I have a staghorn fern, a tropical plant, that I put outside each summer. I’ve still got it, and I can still lift it. I don’t know when I purchased it, but it was at least 25 years ago. In the wild (Southeast Asia, Polynesia and Australia) they are epiphytic, living attached to trees. Here in Wisconsin I hang it from a branch under a big Norway Spruce tree when the weather warms up, and it does quite well. In Bethesda it was still small enough and light enough that I could hang it from a shepherd’s hook, just outside aforesaid dining room window. These are pretty tough plants and large ones can go for weeks without water.

Occasionally Carolina Wrens would take a liking to the fern and build a nest in it. They seemed oblivious to us inside the house. We cut way back on watering, and stayed away from the nest. As the eggs hatched and the chicks grew, the parents would fly in and out with all sorts of fat caterpillars and other insects. This photo catches the four nestlings as they are fledging–leaving the nest. You can see little downy feathers here and there. They flew very short distances and hid in the debris on the ground for a few hours until they had the strength to fly to wherever they were headed. We had to make sure none were trapped in the window wells.

You might try a wren house near a window. If you have a young scholar in the house, keeping a journal of what the birds are doing might make a good school project. Or, maybe start growing a staghorn fern for a birdhouse in say, 2030.