Robins

It’s not unusual for one or more of our boys to grab some sticks or leaves to play with and then try to bring them in the house. So when my wife came home and saw this:

image of a mess outside a front door

she assumed one of the kids was playing with some nature and left it outside the front door.

Then she looked up.

image of a bird nest above a front door

It was not one of the boys. It was a robin who was being messy.

image of a mess above a front door

I know why the bird chose the place – it’s under the porch so it is sheltered from the wind and rain. But that is our main door. People are going through that doorway a lot throughout the day. I would have thought the bird would want a quieter place. But no, she stuck with it – flying away whenever we got close and then flying back when the coast was clear – and finished her nest.

A little while later, she laid three eggs.

And a little while later, they hatched. Well, two out of three did.

image of newly-hatched baby robins

We got to watch the babies grow up. The kids could see the nest from the dining room, so a number of times they saw the mama bird bring worms up to the nest. And the little beaks poking over the top of the nest.

Here is the view from our dining room window:

image of robin sitting on her nest

image of mother robin feeding her baby birds

Some more shots of the baby birds.

image of baby robins

image of baby robins

image of baby robins

image of baby robins

image of baby robins

I’d occasionally lift each child up so he could peek into the nest and see the baby birds up close.

And then, one day, the nest was empty.

image of a robin nest that's empty except for one unhatched dud egg

In case you’re wondering, here’s the timeframe:

Start of building nest: 4/20/15
Eggs hatched: 5/12/15
Babies left: 5/26/15

So 3 weeks for nesting and sitting, then 2 weeks for feeding and growing – about 5 weeks total.

I’d give the margin of error as +/- 2 days. I have the exact date and time the photos were taken, but I didn’t take pictures every day. So I don’t know exactly when the eggs were laid, for example.

P.S. – I took the empty nest down and put it in a tree at the property line.

If you happen to come upon a bird’s nest along the way, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs, and the mother sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young;

Deuteronomy 22:6

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This little article thingy was written by Some Guy sometime around 6:08 am and has been carefully placed in the Life category.

4 Responses to “Robins”

  1. Ricky Anderson Says:

    And the nest is history.

  2. Some Guy Says:

    And now you know … the nest of the story.

    Or rather, the story of the nest.

  3. Phoebe Says:

    Yeah, the mourning doves tried, for the second year, to nest on top of our garage door opener. I think the coming/going was just too much for them as we found two broken eggs on our garage floor. Plus a neighborhood cat discovered it as we found dusty cat prints on our van.

  4. Bird’s Nest Timelapse •• Some Blog Site Says:

    […] For those who are keeping track, this is very similar to the post I wrote 9 years ago about a robin who made a nest over our front door. […]

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