Sing loud and carry a big stick!

House wrens are basically huge, continuously operating voice boxes encased in half-ounce packages of feathers. They sing loudly and constantly, bubbling their happy tunes, while engaging in their daily chores. I was fortunate enough to catch them doing what they do a couple of times a year—preparing their nest box for a new brood.



Some people get annoyed with house wrens because they just won’t shut up. This pair never shut up the whole time I watched them. They changed their happy song to a scolding rattling squawk when I sneaked closer for photographic purposes, so I backed off and they were happy again, continuing and sharing their musical and nest material collecting duties. By the size of some of the sticks they were wiggling through the nest box hole, they were in the initial stages of the project, building a platform to which smaller materials and finally feathers were to be added.

What an industrious and happy pair. We could learn a lot from them. Proverbs 6:6 reads, “Go to the ant, thou sluggard. Consider her ways and be wise.” We could rewrite that to read, “Go to the house wrens, thou sluggard; work hard and be happy.”

The house wren is probably the most scientifically studied bird in the world. One man, S. Charles Kendeigh, studied the physiology and behavior of a population of wrens in Ohio for eighteen years. I suppose we could learn a lot from him as well.

We could even learn a somewhat negative lesson from Troglodytes aedon: shut up when you have nothing more to say! The Apostle James had something to say about that in the third chapter of his very convicting book. It’s worth a careful look (James 3:5-12).

While I’m at it, I’ll add my usual anti-evolution rant. No, house wrens are not dinosaurs, nor are they descended from dinosaurs. The number of developments necessary to change a reptile into a bird makes the idea ridiculous, unless you have a hopelessly blinding materialist, evolutionary mindset. No, reptiles are reptiles; birds are birds; both are fantastically complex and wonderful works of Creation.

And now, lest the Apostle convict me again--as he has done so many times in the past--I'll shut up.