The wrens picked the hose reel. This is not a thing I would have predicted, in part because the hose reel is one of the few human-made objects in the yard I use regularly, and in part because there are at least three nest boxes available within fifty feet that I had set up specifically for wrens.

The hose reel is one of those green plastic units with a cover that flips up so the hose can be drawn out. When I am not using it, which is most of the time outside of summer, the cover stays down and the interior is dark, dry, and protected from weather. A house wren looking for a cavity, and finding a small entry where the hose feeds out through the side, evidently identified it as a perfectly serviceable nest site, and began stuffing it with twigs on a Wednesday in late April.

Why a Hose Reel Beat the Nest Boxes

I noticed the construction on Friday, when I went to drag out the hose for the first time of the season. The cover was halfway up, the hose was buried under several inches of small dry sticks, and the male wren was on the fence behind me singing aggressively at my arrival. There was already, by my best guess, the beginning of a nest cup down in the back of the reel, where the wood twigs gave way to softer material. I left the cover up halfway, withdrew, and accepted that the hose would be out of service for the next month.

House wrens are not subtle nest-builders. The male will fill any cavity that smells right with twigs, sometimes several cavities at once, and the female chooses among them when she arrives. Once she picks, she does most of the actual lining of the nest with finer materials. The hose reel apparently won out over the three boxes, the dense forsythia, and the hollow fence post by the gate, all of which I had thought were better options. The wren disagreed.

How House Wrens Pick a Cavity

What I have come to appreciate about wrens is their indifference to my preferences. I can put up the best-designed nest box in the literature, in the best location, with the right entrance hole size, and the wren will use the hose reel anyway. The species evolved to nest in whatever cavity it could find in mostly open habitat, and the modern yard offers more cavity options than a Victorian-era yard did, and the wrens have noticed. I have known birders who have had wrens nesting in old boots, in coffee cans on shelves in open sheds, in the gaps under porch eaves, and once memorably in the engine compartment of a car that had been parked under a tarp for too long. The hose reel is in good company.

The pair are now active. The female arrived on Monday, inspected the nest cup, made some adjustments, and laid the first egg on Tuesday. By this morning the clutch was at five eggs, which is typical for a first-of-the-year house wren nest at this latitude. Incubation will take about thirteen days, and the young will fledge about sixteen days after hatching, so the entire reproductive cycle in the hose reel will end somewhere around the third week of June.

A Slightly Messier Yard for Six Weeks

I have moved my watering schedule to accommodate this. The hose is now coiled on the ground next to the reel, exposed to the sun and not as tidy as it should be, but functional. The cost of a successful house wren brood is a slightly messier yard for six weeks, which is a trade I am willing to make. The yard works best when I let the birds set the terms more than I do.

The cover of the reel stays half open as long as the wrens want it that way. I can wait. The eggs in the nest will be quiet for another two weeks, after which the yard will get noticeably louder, and I am looking forward to that more than I have looked forward to most things this year.