The last couple years we’ve been lucky enough to have a great view of nesting Robins. Last year, it was a nest built right outside our patio window and we stealthily video taped them from birth to flight. This year they built a home nestled snugly in our honeysuckle vines on our front porch. We waited and waited and one day discovered four baby blue eggs. I would wait til the mom left and then sneak out and get a couple shots. This one was taken of all four babies poking their heads out.
They were quite noisy with the mom flying out for worms about every 7-10 minutes. The night that the above photo was taken, sadly a raccoon found the nest and in an audibly horrific fashion, the mom tried to fight off the attacker, but all the babies were gone. It was midnight and my husband and I ran out there but it was too late. We found one very badly shaken up baby still alive and fine and Shane scooped him up and placed him back in the nest. He then stood vigil most of the night scaring off the raccoon who kept coming back. During this whole time, the surviving baby bird was spooked and attempted to flee from his stalker. Not quite ready to fly – but trying – falling back out of the nest into the brush below.
Momma bird hangin out with us in the garden
The next morning we woke up and spent a couple hours meticulously and gently poking around flower beds and foliage trying to find the little guy. A slight trail of soft white baby feathers stretched from one end of the flower bed to the other. We were heart broken as he was nowhere to be found. In the afternoon, the mother bird made an appearance in odd fashion while we were weeding out another flower bed on the opposite side of the yard. I’ve never seen anything like it before. She would hop up within a inches of us. Shane laid the hose down and she drank from the trickle, unafraid. We watched as she collected worms from the newly turned soil and made her way to the place we spent all morning searching for her baby. And there it was! A fluffy, speckled, little baby on a low branch of a small tree! We watched her the rest of the day as she fed her one remaining chick. No nest… just waiting quietly on a branch. Yesterday the baby was back on the ground and able to fly very awkwardly up to the gutter of our house.
I know this is the circle of life, but it was so sad. I’m so glad there was a tiny bit of a happy ending to this. Nature is an amazing thing isn’t it? It brings out a wide range of emotions: happiness, sadness, anguish, elation, wonder, amazement, serenity.
