Photo Story 4 - House Wren

A lot of the time I find myself focusing on rare wildlife to highlight, and I lose track of just how fulfilling it can be to capture the most common species to the best of my ability. The humble House Wren is a bird I've seen and heard quite literally thousands of times throughout my birding life, and up until this spring, I'd never even so much as made a measly attempt at taking a good photo of one. 

House Wrens are denizens of dense woodlands, thick scrubby areas, all the way to city parks. They're extremely versatile and extremely common throughout their range. In late April/early May when they start to pop back into the Chicago area, their lovely bubbly song fills every nook and cranny where trees exist. Like I said, I've never even tried to photograph one more than just a really bad photo to put up on iNaturalist, so a few days after having gotten back to Chicago from Colorado, I set out to change that. 

Well, not exactly... I set out to the Palos Preserves with the intention of taking a really good photo of something dirt common that I'd never really tried to get a really good photo of. Birds such as Eastern Wood Pewee, Indigo Bunting, Common Yellowthroat, and House Wren came to mind, I was just planning on meandering around until I found the perfect opportunity. Early in the morning, right at sunrise, I made my first stop of the day at Cap Sauers Forest Preserve, a really nice old growth oak-hickory woodland. I parked my car, walked for maybe 30 seconds down the trail from the parking area, and I had met my goal for the day. A stunning male Indigo Bunting popped up right in front of me, chipping in alarm of my presence. With there being very little light in the forest, I gambled with my settings, slowed my shutter speed down to 1/80 to keep my ISO reasonable, switched over to my highest burst setting, and fired off a few shots. It almost immediately took off, and I was worried I blew the opportunity, but one of the dozen or so photos was tack sharp, perfectly lit, and with a gorgeous background. Success.  

That was just too easy, and I was happy with my luck and the photo I had gotten, but I wasn't entirely fulfilled by the experience. It felt too simple to just get out of the car and have that happen, I needed to work a little harder for the next one. 

As my luck that day would have it, It was only a quarter mile or so down the trail that I found my next subject, a male House Wren. This little guy was going off singing from a really nice Black Cherry snag, perfectly obstructed by a very large oak tree. Male House Wrens are quite territorial and not at all afraid to let you know you're in its space, and I was hoping this bird wouldn't be an exception. I could hear the bird continuing to sing from the same snag as I slowly crept up behind the tree making sure to not crunch the dried leaves and gravel leading up to the oak. Kneeling down to be at eye-level with the bird, I slowly leaned over to poke my camera out from the side of the trunk, just 15-20 feet from the wren. It was perfect. The bird sat on a small knot, went upside down to check out a bug, and moved on to the next perch, much higher up. As I fired off shots of this happening, I knew looking through the viewfinder these were as good as I was gonna get it. I definitely feel like the exposure and composition are reminiscent of my friend and incredible photographer Matt Zuro's passerine images, which makes sense as I take inspiration from his work quite often.

I rounded off my morning with a bunch of other good birds at Cap Sauers and a few other places, but was most happy with having surpassed my goal for the day. Me being me, it wasn't good enough. I needed to do better. 

The very next day, I ditched my plans to get a few more year birds for the county, and drove all the way back to Cap Sauers... Just to get better photos of this one House Wren. Before dawn I left the house, and arrived at the spot I had it the day before right at about first light. With dawn chorus ramping up, I figured it would definitely like to sing from some of the same perches as the day before, so I plopped myself down among the Woodland Sunflowers backed up against a tree right in the middle of a handful of good perches, and waited for the House Wren to start singing. Just before 6:00am it started going off from behind me, and I could hear it bouncing back and forth from tree to tree and fallen branch to fallen branch. In the darkness, I somehow missed the 4(ish) foot tall small tree stump about 12 feet directly in front of me. I had a feeling that when the bird finally would come around in front of me, it would sit up there. I was right. It sat there, it sang there, it did acrobatics there. All of which I was watching excitedly, firing off shots. Soon enough, the sun poked through the trees a good amount, and it started actively foraging in between rounds of song. It was honestly just very cool to watch, and definitely gave me a much greater appreciation for just sitting and watching the most common birds I most definitely take for granted on my average day of birding.