Birds in my Belfry

Here’s something fun to try when you’re sitting around at home all day and happen to have 500 mealworms on hand which your bearded dragon has turned his snout up at: make friends with wrens. A pair of Carolina wrens outside our apartment has been feeding their young brood for a couple of weeks so I’ve been tossing worms to them on the patio. I’m doing this chiefly to make their hectic little lives simpler, but also in part, I have to confess, to make my own simple life more fulfilling.

Two days ago I left the sliding screen door open after I “wormed” the birds, and while I was back at my computer I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. One of the wrens had come into the apartment and was hopping around on the living room carpet, presumably looking for more worms.

But as I watched this bird closely, I noticed a certain look of malcontent growing in its bead-like eye. A chill crawled up my spine.

These visits went on for a while and eventually I got tired of these fearsome birds harassing me so I just gave them the whole worm container out on the patio and, of course, it didn’t take either of these wormmongers long to figure out what was inside.

Then yesterday I decided to test our friendship again. I put the container on the carpet, opened the screen several inches and, just after the noon hour, ate lunch—although somewhat reluctantly—with the wrens.

Different lunches of course.

But after some time of this, when I felt my guests had crossed the line of appreciation and fallen into greed, I spoke to them. I wanted to know if they intended to finish off every single worm in one sitting, and if they would require tea afterward. But I got quite a surprise in return. One of them, the larger malcontented one, turned slowly toward me and said, “Beak quiet!”

Can you imagine? And after all I’ve done for their little ones.