Rae Spencer

Carolina Wrens are rare visitors in the yard, so I was excited to see a pair of them last week.

With vivid eyebrows and down-curved bills, these little wrens always look a bit grumpy to me. They are active foragers, and the pair in our yard spent hours sifting through the iris beds in search of insects. They tossed leaves and other wintry debris out of the beds as they hunted, and I couldn’t help imagining a dialogue of fussy disapproval.

“Just look at these irises! Have you ever seen such?”

“Never! They’re buried in leaves!”

I was tempted, watching the wrens, to pull on my gloves and give the iris beds a thorough cleaning. But winter is far from over, and the irises need their blanket of leaves. Especially on nights like tonight, when wind-driven snow is swirling through the yard…