Two things happened when I stepped out the door to refill the hummingbird feeder this morning:

     I heard Lady Wren’s Good Morning song

                   and

    I saw the beginnings of a hornet’s nursery lying on the sidewalk.  Where did it come from?    Usually you can spot where it had originally been attached.  We have seen black-coloured hornets taking a sip around the pond now and then, and they haven’t bothered us at all.  They cunningly construct the delicate tissue-paper walls from saliva and wood pulp, but  I don’t think our wood deck will disappear any time soon. 

Like yesterday, I could hear Lady Wren singing from every corner of the neighbourhood.  As her song drew nearer to Cedar Hollow, I got the camera on the ready.

Sure enough, after her arrival in the black walnut tree, she popped inside Swiss Chalet.  The obstruction of twigs she has placed by her front door didn’t slow down her entry in the least.  Nothing slows her down! 

Apparently she builds the bowl of her nest toward the back of the box.  It’s thought that wrens use spider egg sacs to help control mites in the nest.  The spiders hatch and eat the mites!

 Now, is this a picture of Lady Wren just after she laid her daily egg . . .  or had she laid the egg at the crack of dawn and then proclaimed it from the neighbourhood treetops?  Don’t you wish you knew?

 I’m so glad Lady Wren chose the Swiss Chalet with its cool, leafy canopy overhead to protect her and the egg-babes from the current heat wave.