This is Alpha, the first-born, when he was 2YO.
This is Beta, the second-born, when he was about 2YO.
This is Gamma, the third-born, when he was about 18MO.
Robins
Jun
4
2015
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:
she assumed one of the kids was playing with some nature and left it outside the front door.
Then she looked up.
It was not one of the boys. It was a robin who was being messy.
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.
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:
Some more shots of the baby birds.
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.
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
This little article thingy was written by Some Guy sometime around 6:08 am and has been carefully placed in the Life category.
June 4th, 2015 at 5:19 pm
And the nest is history.
June 4th, 2015 at 9:15 pm
And now you know … the nest of the story.
Or rather, the story of the nest.
June 8th, 2015 at 4:32 pm
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.