24/5/20 Today I finally found out why a wren has been acting in an agitated manner every time I arrived back home in the car. Incredibly, during the “lockdown”, it has built a nest in a hollow high up inside the rear wheel-arch, laid eggs in there, and hatched them! I go every week to the supermarket for a couple of hours, and recently I have twice been away from home with the car for about four hours. I can only assume that the incubating parent has stayed on the nest throughout these journeys; I cannot feel properly inside the nest, but the youngsters seem to be about 2 – 3 days old. See also 1/6/20
1/6/20 I took the car in for service (overdue, due to “lockdown”) at 8.30 am, and brought it back at around 3.15 pm. Within minutes of arriving back, I saw the parent wrens repeatedly carrying food into the nest in the vehicle's wheel arch
6/6/20 See 1/6 and 24/5; the young wrens finally fledged today; Jacqui saw two already out, and a few minutes later I saw another two emerge; when I then checked the nest, it was empty; some may have already gone before Jacqui saw the first two. Given a textbook fledging time of 16 days old, the nestlings must have been already about three days old when I first found the nest, the hen must have started incubating around 5/5/20, and the nest must have been there since late April.
