You may have seen on my blog that a mama Carolina wren was nesting in a sombrero hanging on our garage wall. She was there for several weeks before Easter. As soon as I found the nest, we kept the door open, but who knows how many times she might have been locked away from them before that.

So today I decided it was time (they are supposed to hatch in 14-16 days) and I put the hat nest and eggs into the garbage can.

But when I did that, I counted 11 eggs and there were only 7 before.

I don’t know why I did it after I’d already gotten rid of the eggs, but I looked online just one more time for what happens when the eggs don’t hatch and what the mama does. All the other times I googled it I came up with nothing, but today I found a resource that says that birds will sometimes lay a second clutch of eggs later on top of the unhatched ones, since the nest is already made.

Oh no!

That would explain why there were now 5 more eggs.

So after I had a really good cry, my Mom convinced me to go out and try to save it all. I used a paper towel folded over like a pot holder to put the nest back in the sombrero. Then I took a tablespoon and gently lifted all the eggs I could find out of the trash can and into the nest and then I hung the sombrero back in the garage.

Checked a little bit ago and mama is sitting on the eggs again. I just hope there are some viable ones in there – think I got 7 back into the nest – hope some of them are the new ones, but that was all I could find. One broke and I couldn’t get the others.

At least I tried and I feel better. And I learned a lesson. Well, maybe two lessons – don’t move nests until there is absolutely no adult activity, and … keep the garage door closed all the time so they won’t make nests in my garage.

Or, (more likely) put a birdy – door in our garage!