Raising Baby

In Rylstone, we are lucky to have several families of a delightful little bird called the Superb Fairy Wren.  That is such an appropriate name for them because the males have a superbly bright blue head and tail.  They are tiny little birds, and very delicate looking.  The females of course are a non descript browny colour but with the same body shape and the same jaunty little tail, with a green wash.  They hang around in family groups, and it appears that Mr Wren has a harem, because he is surrounded by little brown birds, but in reality, his previous children stay with them for a season or two to help with the raising of the next brood of chicks.  In a good season, there will be three crops of chicks, and Mrs Wren builds the nest by herself, and hatches out the babies, but the whole family looks after her, and assists with looking after the babies.

But the domestic scene is not quite as tranquil as it seems.  Mrs Wren, having chosen Mr Wren as the best provider for her family, sometimes takes it upon herself to go and visit another Mr Wren who lives a couple of hundred yards away, and gets herself in the family way by him, and then goes home to her “old man” and lays the eggs for him and the older children to help her raise.  I might add that Mr Wren is no more virtuous, because it’s very likely he’s been having it off with another Mrs Wren as well! 

Now just to add a bit more spice into the mix, along comes a cuckoo.  We all know that cuckoos lay their eggs in other birds nests.  But the cuckoos try very hard to lay them at the right time so the wrens don’t realise the cuckoo’s egg is not one of their own.  If the cuckoo lays the egg too soon after Mrs Wren has started laying, she instinctively realises its not hers, and weaves it into the side of her nest, or hoicks it over the side.  However, if Mrs Cuckoo is able to time it correctly, she will eject one of the wren eggs and replace it with her own, which will be very similar to the wren eggs in colouring, and only a little different in shape.  Mrs Wren, all unsuspecting, then sits on all the eggs, thinking they’re hers.  When the babies start hatching, all hell breaks loose.  The baby cuckoo ejects any baby wrens that have been born, and also any eggs that are still waiting to be hatched, so that it gets all the food the wren family can provide.  And for some reason, the wrens think that any baby in the nest must be theirs, and will feed it unthinkingly, even though it looks nothing like them, and grows bigger than them.  And that is exactly what happens….the baby cuckoo grows to be up to six times the size of the foster parent . 

One year I witnessed a family of wrens feeding a young cuckoo.  The cuckoo by this time had left the nest, and was sitting on a branch in a bush in my garden.  It shrieked incessantly, as all baby birds do, and it was surrounded by these tiny little wrens, who appeared to have divided themselves into shifts, to ease the work load.  One lot of little birds would fly off and find food and then come back and shovel their loads of delicacies into this cavernous mouth, and then retire to a different branch to recover.  You could almost see them breathe a sigh of relief and say to each other, “Thank goodness we can sit down for a minute!”  The other group would then fly off for their turn at finding tucker, and then return and feed their adopted offspring, then retire while the first group went back to work.  I had never seen a cuckoo that young, and I stayed and watched for some time.  I thought thank goodness there’s so many in the family, they wouldn’t cope otherwise!

I can only imagine that the wrens are very pleased to see their charge reach adulthood…..and leave home!