Maybe two weeks ago as Kim left the house, she was startled by a wren noisily taking off right in front of her face. A close inspection of the big Hoya plant she has in a terracotta pot that sits on a wooden pedestal right by our front door revealed a 10” two-entrance tunnel nest, and in one of these entrances five or six tiny mottled eggs in different shades of light blue and brown. I never got to photograph the eggs because I was very sick for a few days, but after a prompt diagnosis (Lyme disease) and antibiotic treatment ordered by Dr. Maura McCauley of Trumansburg Family Medicine, I was back to normal and able to steadily photograph the progress of the nascent wren family.
The whole miraculous process seemed to play out very rapidly and with an extraordinary display of feeding and nest cleansing labor carried out by both parent birds. Now, all the babies, except one, that died, have left their safe place under the Hoya plant. Here is a selection of images made of the old-looking chicks as they appeared at the mouth of the nest and, later on, as they carried-out their maiden flights around our front entrance, perching in different places and waiting to be fed a few more succulent insects before they disappeared to god-knows-where.
It has been a glorious treat for Kim and I to see them grow and leave. Thanks to events like this one, we ourselves grow further in awe of the natural world, as we simultaneously grow in bafflement, and sometimes despair of the human one that seems so stubbornly alienated from its true source in the mystery of life.
