Night fell and as the snake passed a large patch of sunflowers. He slithered down the tree, and following the flight path of the little birds, moved towards the garden wall. If he could not survive on eggs, he would die striking against these new enemies. These little birds were responsible for his empty stomach. There was silence, and then the mournful song he knew all too well of birds who had lost their eggs to intruders. But from the branches of the fourth empty nest the weakening old snake saw two little birds flying out from a nest in the next tree, chirping quickly and flapping as two other larger birds glided into the nest. He tried another nest a little further off to the same result. The nest near his hole, the one he had been watching all spring, a robin’s nest… had nothing more to offer than dried broken shells for the hungry old snake. There was an old bull snake who had taken to the less difficult task of egg snatching. They were small and quick so no one saw them fly in, and no one saw them leave. Their beaks soon dripped with the broken hopes of other birds. Convinced that this was her only choice, she chose her own. When the Little House Wren resisted, he scolded her for not caring for their family and insisted that she must choose between her eggs and another’s. The two of them would fly to every nest within their territory, wait for the nests to be unguarded, then they would peck at the other eggs until they broke. The night the little house Wren laid her eggs, before she could lovingly sit on them, her mate squawked his terrible plan to ensure their children’s safety. The Little House Wren loved her mate and she wanted her little ones to eat well and not starve, so her heart grew more fearful with each twig placed in another bird’s nest. He would chirp to his mate about the lack of food in their area and how the other birds were going to consume all the resources that were rightfully theirs. The male Wren began looking out of the little hole in the birdhouse, watching every bird that flew by with suspicion. But as the eggs grew in her, a darkness grew in him.
She had a mate and the two of them began their family in an old birdhouse on a fencepost that stood on the edge of a beautiful vegetable garden, surrounded by sunflowers.
Once upon a time, near a farmhouse nestled in the foothills, there was a Little House Wren.