Robin Diaries from Kestrel: A robin made the very weird decision to build a nest on the spare tire of my stock trailer. I think it’s weird because the site is only about 4’ off the ground, and I walk past there several times a day while doing chores. Nevertheless… for some reason, that’s where the nest was built. First I knew of it, I was getting sworn at by a robin. So I checked, and found this. Click for full size!
April 26th:
May 12th:
May 17th:
May 19th:
May 20th:
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Birds building nests at the oddest places and getting all indignant when you try to go about your business? That can’t be!
Beautiful pictures lovely documenting how fast bird chicks grow up.
Love the colour of the eggs, just beautiful. And I’m always fascinated by the incredibly translucent skin of little birdlings before it gets all feathered -- so fragile, so revealing, the wee little dinosaurs.
I love baby birds but boy, are they ever ugly… I almost felt like, “Hey -- someone stole those beautiful eggs, and put these hideous things in there instead!”. They grow so fast. You can almost see feathers coming out before your very eyes.
Do you have a special bird for #365 (or #366?)? I have grackles and starlings in perfusion, but you have many shots of those. My raptors have been most elusive. The best time to get close to them is when they are having a meal near the house. I haven’t seen and signs of feeding lately. Alas.
The first picture: Gorgeous, also, a lower bound for blueness of Dylan’s eyes established if we’re to believe Joan Baez.
The second: The comb-like thing (wing?) looks interesting.
The third: “Getting a bit crowded here.”
The fourth: “Very crowded.”
The fifth: “Oh, you just fly away?”
Do robins normally have so many babies? That nest looks packed tight in the second to last photo. Hmmm…maybe overcrowding is part of the incentive for fledglings to fly and flee.
According to what I understand… normal clutch size is 3 to 5. This was 4 eggs, and all successfully hatched, grew and fledged. It is interesting that the nest size is so appropriate. The eggs look lost in all that space, but when the chicks are about to fledge they pretty much have that nest packed.
I would not have been able to keep such a close eye on that nest had it been in a normal nesting site… like, 20′ up in a tree or something.
We had a robin nest on the fence at about waist-height in the lilac before it was fully leaved.
The robin laid one egg, the magpie ate it and that was that.
It was early so the robins may have tried again in a less dumb-ass location.