Robin's Nest

This Spring the Robin you see in this picture built a nest on a north facing window ledge on our house (facing Marsha and Daisy's place). She then laid 3 blue eggs and sat on them for several days until they hatched. From the time the birds where new borns until they flew the nest, the mother and her mate, apparently a male, fed the 3 baby birds from sun-up to sun-down. The 2 adults fed the babies an assortment of worms and bugs including some black insects and several green ones; but mostly regular old earth worms. The adult birds didn't venture far from the nest and spent most of their time in our front yard searching for and gathering food. Numerous times we observed these birds fly to various spots in the yard, stand motionless for a few seconds before cocking their head to one side-apparently to hone in on the exact spot they heard or sensed a worm or insect-and with rare exception, quickly take a hop or two and bing-ba-da-bing...snack time!

From this experience I learned several things first hand:

-Robin's eggs are blue (I actually already knew that)
-Both the female and male Robin feed and tend to the baby birds
-Once the babies have feathers and are big enough to fill the nest, the mother no longer sits on them
-A Robin obviously has either tremendous eye site and/or hearing
-Large amounts of rainfall does not bother baby birds as long as they stay in the nest
-Baby birds spend a lot of time sitting with their beaks open waiting for food to be dropped in it
-It only takes about 3 weeks to go from hatchling to full fledged flying bird
-Once the babies are gone, the adults apparently do not return to the nest

It remains to be seen whether or not a Robin returns each Spring to build a nest in the same spot it did the previous year. If so, I'll set the GoPro to time lapsed photography and put it on the nest to catch the action in more detail. Either way, I'll keep you posted...