Last week a chipmunk, a few weeks before that a little brown mouse. (The cat was toying with it and when I rescued said mouse. Both he and I were convinced he was dead. Since there was no obvious injury, I carried him outside and as the shock wore off, mouse hopped to his feet, panted for a few moments, then ran off into the underbrush.)

This morning my eldest noticed a chittering sound and the cat pawing at a window. A baby wren (his tail was far too short to be an adult) was clinging to the inside of the screen. Somehow he’d managed to squeeze through a 1/2 inch opening, trapping himself between the screen and our closed window. Mom (or dad) was in the bush just outside the window hopping from branch to branch chittering his alarm/worry/displeasure at our presence.

My husband retrieved a scrap of material, I pushed open the window and caught the flapping baby in my hands. We zoomed through the house and out the front door. I held up the baby to his door and he hopped right back in the nest.

Not the best first day in flight school.

Here are the babies (you can see only one of three) as they were last week:

I sincerely hope our wildlife visitors don’t grow any larger.

Today, Darwin had an extra treat when one ventured inside the screened porch. This is what I found:

I opened the door wide and gave the chipmunk a little nudge. He didn’t need much convincing.

Bet he won’t be back.

Apparently they’re very rare and the chicks will not hatch (they can’t acess the air pocket when there are two in the egg). For way more info than you probably want, you can read Twin Yolks and Twin Chooks?

The kids thought it was pretty cool and the oldest had a lot of questions about twins… but no remorse about eating the fried egg.