Sports: Outdoors

Mr. And Mrs. Wren: A parenting study

Bob Kornegay

I know a little about mamas and daddies. I spent 30 years in a middle school classroom and met hundreds of them, good and bad. I'm no expert, mind you, but my powers of observation are pretty keen. I am also a parent myself and, yes, I have a mama and daddy of my own, despite the opinion of some that I was more than likely put together from spare parts in the laboratory of some 1950s version of Dr. Frankenstein.

Since parents, my own and others, have been a big part of my life for a very long time, I feel reasonably well qualified to judge all of them on their relative merits, or lack thereof. Given that, I'm here to say, friends, that none of them, me and mine included, can hold a candle to two I met a little over a month ago.

Back in late March (I'm no ornithologist, but I thought it was a little early), Mr. and Mrs. Carolina Wren set up housekeeping inside my hopelessly cluttered garage. The pair constructed a well-engineered (if somewhat sloppy) family dwelling in a mildewed cardboard carton full of old magazine shelf filers. They soon became good and hospitable neighbors, not even complaining when I twice had to move their home to reach some dusty, long-hidden object behind it. I'm sure they appreciated my always putting it back in the same place.

Mr. and Mrs. Wren were no doubt a young and virile couple. This was evidenced by the fact that, within days after its completion, their pine-needle nest suddenly "sprouted" eight tiny speckled eggs, six of which were subsequently replaced by tiny, big-mouthed, ugly infants. Having once been one of those myself, I was motivated to take an interest in their upbringing.

To this point, the avian "newlyweds" had catered only to each other.

They dined on gourmet garden bugs, took luxurious dust baths in exclusive sand-bed spas and (can I say this?) made passionate, feverish love in secluded carport corners.

The honeymoon ended when the first offspring appeared. No more relaxing or resting easy atop a clutch of eggs. Eggs don't need feeding. Baby wrens, however, do. Often.

Watching the dutiful parents steadily deliver a never-ending stream of "groceries" to their residence, I checked several times to make sure the pair had not adopted a brood of piglets or buzzards. How six nearly microscopic hatchlings could eat so much was beyond me.

The sextuplets grew rapidly and their needs increased. More and more insects had to be sought out and captured. Housekeeping chores multiplied daily. I mean, six babies (sans diapers) in one bed? Gee whiz. Mrs. Wren lost her good looks while "hubby" worked extra shifts to keep food on the table. I watched it all and marveled, wondering all the while what kept Mr. Wren from turning to drink.

The time came (very quickly, I thought) for the six siblings to leave home. It was a noisy and totally unorganized departure. I awoke one morning to total chaos in Wrensville. My garage was the setting of a wild melee of fledgling wrens and their harried, flustered parents. The high-pitched chirping was clearly audible from inside my kitchen, not to mention the muffled thuds of student "aviators" clumsily colliding with garage walls. I went out to stand guard against any feral feline invader that might be drawn to the commotion.

By late afternoon, the brood was courageous enough to relocate to my holly hedge. Gradually, they all took semi-competent wing; flying longer and longer distances until I at last saw them no more. Through it all, mom and dad never ceased their efforts to make this transition to young adulthood successful, eventually seeing all their children off into the cruel world, where they are now left to their own devices.

I only hope, when it's said and done, my own parenting has like results. Many times, as I watched the above scenario play out, I caught myself envying the self-sacrifice and dedication of those two birds. Humans, however, with few exceptions, will never be quite that selfless.

On the other hand, the wrens will never hear from their babies again.

Mine, however, calls and writes regularly, whenever the money runs out.

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