House Wren

Here in Northern Virginia the kind of wrens we usually see are Carolina wrens (Thry­otho­rus lu­do­vi­ci­a­nus), but this Summer a house wren (Troglodytes aedon) built a nest in this straw nesting box that we had hung with hope on our deck. After the usual couple weeks of frenetic bug feeding, the children are off on their own.

During those weeks, anyone stepping on to the deck caused the parent to fly to a nearby branch and scream continuously until the intruder went back inside. I think the idea is to distract a possible predator from the nest location.