Wake Up Call

For some reason, I woke up at 6:00 am this morning. I didn’t need the bathroom, I was tired from staying up ‘til 2:00 reading Ian McEwan, and the cat slept soundly by my elbow. Maybe it was the Carolina wren bellowing on my bedroom windowsill.

I’m glad to hear him. Carolina wrens pair up for life, travel together year-round, and I almost never see one without a partner. The conspicuous male belts out variations on his “teakettle” theme and the female churrs back to him from a more-concealed twig. They’re small and loud-mouthed and belligerent and loyal and I love them for it. Sadly, something happened to the original pair who tried to tough out a snowy winter in Michigan this year. They came to the windowsill for peanut chips throughout the season, then suddenly were gone. On a walk around the house a few weeks ago, I picked up from under one of the lilac bushes what first looked like a fuzzy leaf. It turned out not to be a leaf but a small, cinnamon-colored wing, a Carolina wren wing.

Of course I have no idea what happened. There are plenty of dangers to wrens about: cats, bad weather, that Cooper’s hawk who dined regularly on juncos at my neighbor’s feeders. I’ll never know whether it was the male or female of the original pair who died. Still, I like to think this morning’s visiting alarm clock is the survivor and that he’s singing for a new mate, an energetic, white-eyebrowed bundle of feathers, song, and hope.