"four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie?" Not much meat on a wren, though.

Wow, those pictures are glorious!! Amazing creatures.

Hmmmm...I used to really love birds--now I'm seeing another side to them.

Maybe the wren was developing a taste for easy prey--hope that's what it is, and she's not working too hard for dinner.

Your post made me laugh..I'm keeping my aquarium with my 50 plus cecropia caterpillars in the garage. Yesterday, I saw a cardinal flitting about the small door,which was open, presumably trying get brave enough to fly in and grab one.

Then today my cat, feline one, decided to lay on the table next to the aquarium and check it out. Maybe all that munching is audible...

Maryann

Wrens are always so comical, making nests in odd places, and singing "tea kettle, tea kettle, tea kettle" over and over - I forgive them, but I'm keeping the placemats on the cages!
Sherry

I had cardinals kill two cecropia cats last year. Cats were in rearing bags and the cardinals pecked the cats to death but could not eat them.

This year, my yard has a big influx of young cardinals. I see them on my rearing bags a lot but I don't think they have killed a cat, yet.

This spring something started picking moths out of my moth bordello (bird cage) so I had to get the cage in before 6:15 AM to keep my moths safe. Whatever it was, it has apparently forgotten about the easy food since I have had 1st brood polyphemus females out the last three nights with no problems (and with no males showing up).

KC

So sorry Miss Sherry;
I went to a talk by Wayne Richards and Judy Burris last night and they were saying the same thing, that wrens would eat their caterpillars. I think they are probably opportunistic and will take what they can find. Lucky them you provided the snack bar!
-Elisabeth

To most dyed in the wool bird lovers, butterflies are just flying food, and your pupa grapes hanging on a vine begging to be plucked. LOL The mat is an excellent deterant on the cages, good idea.

You can't protect them all though (actually, you shouldn't either). Best attitude is love all of nature despite it being a place where your place on the food chain determines your survival and killing is a way of life.

L.

I have developed a particular dislike for mockingbirds since I have had my enjoyment watching tiger swallowtails interrupted by the birds diving down and picking them off while the tigers were fluttering around the buddleias. Then they added insult to injury by eating my blueberries before I could get to them. One of them dived down on one of my pvs chrysalids that had spent most of the winter attached to the side of my garage and ate it just that fast. I hoped so much that it had the worst stomach ache of its little life. I must say though in their defense that I was so pleased the day one of them flew up to my kitchen window and plucked a "Renfield's" delight - a nice juicy spider. I had just been thinking that I would have to get out the broom and sweep it away because I was tired of looking at the ugly beast first thing in the morning. So they have their good points too. But I won't go so far as to say that I will even so much as contemplate loving "all nature". No thanks - the food chain sucks. Murray

I was just going to post about wrens and saw this! I now have one nesting in my the coral honeysuckle that grows over my arbor. I noticed him beating a worm just now and started to read up a bit on them and found that they eat cats. So now I'm not sure what to do about many of my host plants. I'm going to build something to keep them in if I can find them in time.

Sherry - Are you growing a passion vine in your hatchery? That's one of those plants that I'm not sure how to keep restrained in a small hatchery. I guess I need to plan to build enough space between the double layer of screen to exceed the length of the wren's bill.

Unfortunately I too have a couple of mocking birds in the area, but currently I've only seen the gulf frits chase them away!

I guess this predator issue is something I should expect now that I have a certified wildlife habitat in the backyard. LOL.

Tamgirl, I'm not sure what you mean by a hatchery, but, no, I don't have one. I live on 5 1/2 acres of mostly wooded property, so there are host plants all over the place. My passionvines are mostly growing on the hurricane fence that surrounds my garden and on the wood picket fence around the front "yard". I've released 45-50 gulf frits this month, so I had decided to leave the cats on the vines. After seeing the wren pecking at the chrysalis, I've changed my mine, and now I'm bringing in eggs and hatchlings to raise in the cages on my covered porch like I did those I've already released. I guess you could call my cages my hatcheries.
This is the first time I've seen a bird showing interest in eating a caterpillar or chrysalis, although I'm aware that the cuckoos come here to eat tent caterpillars, I just don't see them doing it. Out here in the woods, there are SO many insects - people who live in town can't imagine how thick they are here - and birds have all them to eat plus sunflower seeds, and the hummers feed at my hummingbird feeders. I guess that's why they don't need to bother caterpillars much, but maybe the wrens saw easy pickings and decided to partake!
Sherry

misssherry - what you call a cage I'm calling a hatchery so we're on the same page. ;)

I've seen my wren go across my back flower beds from plant to plant looking for bugs, so I know any cats are doomed if I don't bring them into safety. I just started a new thread yesterday about building an outdoor hatchery to resolve this problem. I just hope I can get my host/nectar plants to grow well inside it!

I found this thread on a search I did about my disappearing Gulf Frit. caterpillars and the suspected culprit wrens. And BINGO! it confirmed my suspicion.
I noticed four young wrens in my yard and watched with delight as they would eat various bugs in my milkweed . Since we don't have monarchs this time of the year i figured no harm. Well I had recently counted 25 caterpillars in various instars on my passion vine but the following day I could not find one.
Here it is 4 days later and still no cats. Then I recalled how the same thing happened this spring with the monarch cats. 2+2 = I guess its time to build some rearing cages .