I meant to do that

Do you remember the finch nest on my front porch? It was built in April, used to raise some chicks, then used again in May to rear a second brood. By the time that last chick took flight, the nest was looking pretty sad -- it had quite a bit of bird "droppings" on it and around it. Once the last chick left I waited a while to see if the nest would be used again, but it wasn't, so I could have cleaned it up at that time.

Since cleanup would involve not just removing the nesting materials -- which would be easy -- but also some scraping and/or washing of the walls in that corner, I put it off. There was always something more fun to do.

***

Well guess what? I still haven't cleaned it up!

Know what else? I'm glad I didn't! Why?

I've noticed Carolina wrens checking the nest out every once in a while, but I wasn't sure why. It didn't seem like the location they usually choose for building their nests, and it's way too early for that.

This afternoon I finally found out why they're interested in it: they're roosting in it!

They spend the night there, protected from the elements and staying relatively warm. I didn't know they were in there until I opened the front door this evening and one of them flew away. They settle way down into the nest -- you can just see the tail of the one bird here:

Both birds take one last cautious look around:

Then drop down out of sight again. It's probably safer and warmer when they do that.


As I said, I didn't know they were actually in the nest until Tagg pointed them out to me today. He's done this on several previous occasions when I looked out and saw the wrens but didn't realize they were roosting:

Tagg is more focused than this photo is.

You remember Tagg, right? He was born in my garage this year, and was called Tiny-toe until we adopted both him and his mother. I guess I should do an update on him, as I never posted about what happened to him. (Take a look here if you want to see all of my previous posts about the kittens.)

So by procrastinating and avoiding the cleanup of that nest, I unintentionally provided a winter roost for some of my favorite birds. Yeah, that was my plan all along!


You know what?

I never did bring in my hummingbird feeder either. I doubt that anybody is getting any use out of that though.