Carolina Wren and Caterpillar
Around 3:00 this afternoon, with huge cumulous clouds looming and thunder rumbling to the south, but the sun still shining in a mostly blue sky, I was standing on the front porch when two young Carolina Wrens flew, fussing loudly, into a big tea olive bush beside me, then down to the ground, up into a Savannah holly, and finally, one of them flew into a planter right beside me, less than two feet away, and hunted around among the lantana and other flowering plants there – and came up with a long, fat, pale, wriggling caterpillar. It carried the caterpillar back into the tea olive bush, where I could still see it, subdued it without too much trouble, swallowed it.
It’s nice to have them helping keep insects out of the plants, but I was mostly impressed with how very tiny they seemed. They looked thin and frail, though energetic and feisty enough and there certainly should be plenty of insects around for them to eat right now. I’ve seen many Carolina Wrens up close, and while they are quite small, they usually look plump and sturdy – but these were scrawny. These two also looked drab and grayish-brown, while Carolina Wrens are usually a warm, rich brown and buff color.
In fact, they looked so scrawny and drab that I have begun to wonder if they were Carolina Wrens at all. They weren’t House Wrens, because there definitely was a distinct supercilium – a prominent pale stripe over the eye. But the only other possibility seems to be a Bewick’s Wren, a species that would be wildly unlikely here, and although I did notice how long and skinny the tail looked, and it did seem to be cocked to one side in an unusual way – I’m pretty sure it had no white edges. So of course they must have been juvenile Carolina Wrens.
But once again – certainly not for the first time – I am left kicking myself for being less observant than I might have been, and for assuming. Because Carolina Wrens are what I usually see and hear around the house, I assumed that’s what they were – and that’s what I saw. I’m not a good enough birder to recognize an unfamiliar species immediately – I have to look closely and check field guides, and a lot of times even then I’m not sure of what I’ve seen. In this case they almost certainly were Carolina Wrens and I’m just making something out of nothing – but I wish I’d paid attention to my own questions at the time, taken a closer look and noted the field marks more carefully. I’d like to say it’s a lesson learned, but probably not. I’ll watch for them again, just in case.