2008 Baby Robins

[apatriot]

Last year I took this picture.  It seems every year I get a robin's nest in my evergreens.  I got worried about them cause as they started to grow they started to explore and were jumping around in the gangways.  One morning I scooped up about 3 and put them back into the nest.  I am sure they all grew up happy and healthy.

The birds are really loving this weather we are having.  I go out there and it is noisy as hell as if they were celebrating.

[Bear]

I had one a few years ago at about eye level in my lilacs. I was amazed that mom let me get so close as she cruised back and forth getting food for them. Of course I had to go get a dozen
earthworms for them, they were gone in a hearbeat.

[apatriot]

I didn't think about the worms, Bear.  I suppose I could have, but I was watched closely by mom and dad too I think cause there were two adult sized robins watching that area.  I get a lot of baby birds here ... mourning doves too with their babies. 

I'm so wishing for Spring.  I hope it's right around the corner.  We deserve early Spring after this Winter.

Spring Fever.

[Boris]

I wrote this in 2006, about the American Robins nesting near our house:

Now I know how a buffalo must feel...
...or "Things I've Learned About Birds while Gardening."

I've just spent a few days landscaping my estate in Berwyn. Google Earth fans like myself can view the grounds from space with the following coordinates:

LAT: 41°51'51.02"N;
LON: 87°47'36.42"W.

As I dug and planted, roto-tilled and shoveled, I spent as much time contemplating the lives of my feathered neighbors as possible, keeping as much attention fixed on chores to avoid roto-tilling my foot. The birds that prompted me to share my experience is the pair of robins currently nesting in my neighbor's front yard.

The nest is located in a small evergreen immediately outside their front door...indeed, it would be just as easy to touch the nest as ring the doorbell. This seems a very logical choice, as the comings and goings of people keeps the resident Cooper's hawk at a distance, but perhaps more importantly, their beagle keeps the neighborhood cats across the street.

I've noticed in the past that whenever I'm digging around in the yard, the robins will check out my work when I'm finished to see what I've exposed. But the behavior I witnessed the last two days takes things to a whole new level. The roto-tiller is much better at exposing worms and other robin food than my usual tool, a small spade. Plus, the pair has 3 newborns that are very hungry.

As soon as I would start the machine, the male would fly in and perch on the fence- apparently attracted by the noise of the engine. After a quick look around, he would fly down to land about 6 feet away- in front of the tiller. He then hops forward to within 3 feet of the whirring blades, which kick the soil up and forward about 3 feet.
Within a minute or two he has secured something for the kids and flies back up to the fence.

Here, with a mouth full of worms he makes a call that I've never noticed coming from a robin before: very high-pitched, sort of like a loud and more piercing call of a cedar waxwing. The female, sitting on the nest about 40 feet away, flies to him upon hearing this call and they trade places: he goes to take care of the kids and she works the roto- tiller...every bit as boldly as the male. The pair also fiercely defended their cornucopia from other robins that occasionally came by to check things out.

They paid no more attention to me or the loud machine I was pushing than a cattle egret gives the buffalo they feed amongst. Often, as I stepped back one of them would fly out literally from under-foot. Hence, the title of my novella.

In the case of American robins, the adapation to urban living seems complete.

Next time on Nova: The Language of Backyard Birds.

Ok...now I have to get back to pulling rose thorns out of my fingers.

[apatriot]

Nice, Boris.  I can relate.