A couple of days ago we were at the Terry Trueblood Recreation Area and it was pretty windy. The birds were challenged just hanging on in the trees. Eastern Kingbirds didn’t hardly ruffle a feather. The Tree Swallows seemed to be pretty good acrobats high up in the trees. The Cowbirds, not so much.
Tag: bird watching
Let Nature Speak
While we were out for a walk on the Terry Trueblood Trail today, for a change, my wife gave me the idea that we should just let nature speak. The frogs were in full voice. It was impressive. As we walk, we usually start off by talking a lot. We point out interesting birds and flowers and comment on all we see and hear. The further we go on the trail, the quieter we get. Pretty soon, we don’t talk much at all. We walk at a slower pace. We just listen.
Usually, after we return home, I make a video and try to match it with some kind of music. Nature has its own music, though. Today, we just let that happen.
Mother’s Day for a Robin
Happy Mother’s Day! The blog post for today is a little unusual because it’s about a “mother” robin who built a nest on April 9, 2019 and is still sitting on it as of today. It’s unusual because she’s been sitting on the nest for at least a couple of weeks now even though there have been no eggs in it. We can’t figure why she’s sitting on an empty nest.
Things got started relatively well. In fact, after building the usual sloppy nest, the mother robin laid two eggs in it. That was the largest number of eggs we ever saw. The number went down from two eggs to one to none over a couple of days or so.
“And then there were none.” I never read Agatha Christie’s book by the same name or saw the TV miniseries on which it was based several years ago. On the other hand, death played a role—a natural one—in the case of the very devoted mother robin.
The robins built their nest in an evergreen tree right below one of our windows. What was nice about that was that I never had to creep up on them, see them thunder out of the tree, mess with the branches around the nest, snap photos—and leave a scent trail for large predatory birds.
Now, speaking of predatory birds…I never saw any of them this time. I know last year I heard a heavy flapping noise (like bedsheets on a clothesline) outside of my office window and opened the blinds just in time to see a huge crow or turkey vulture take off from our front yard tree. Its beak was full of house finch nestlings. I swore I would never again engage in monitoring bird nests in that way.
This time there was only circumstantial evidence of nest robbery. My wife saw broken egg shells on the ground under the tree but it’s not clear exactly when she saw that.
But mother robin still sits on the nest. I have not been able to find any information about this behavior in nesting birds.
It’s not that birds never display odd nesting behavior. One of E.B. White’s essays, “Mr. Forbush’s Friends,” published in the Essays of E.B. White (White, E. B. (1977). Essays of E.B. White. New York [etc.: Harper and Row), describes a great number of these peculiar behaviors. One quote: “Had pair of Carolina wrens build nest in basket containing sticks of dynamite. No untoward results.”
I did wonder why our mother robin built a nest so visible from the sky. That was as bad as building a nest in a basket of dynamite. I know we have a tendency to anthropomorphize animal behavior, but I’m having trouble explaining this mother robin’s persistence in sitting on an empty nest. There are no new eggs; yet she acts as if eggs are there. Is she grieving? Is she hallucinating? How long will this go on?
Maybe some of you know what this is all about and I welcome your comments. Until then, it looks like for this robin, Mother’s Day is endless.
Announcing Spring!
Spring is here! I heard this rustling outside my window this afternoon and when I opened the blinds, I saw flocks of Robins and Cedar Waxwings on our trees, feasting on the berries and little cones. Boy, can they party!
Robin Saga: Start to Finish
We’re just a bit on the sad side today. The robin chicks are gone. It’s another empty nest and sort of the story of our yard over the last month or so, what with the loss of the house finch and cardinal chicks before this.
It’s a hard life for every creature. On the other hand, death in our own yard is always counterbalanced by the triumph of life elsewhere on earth.
That doesn’t make it any easier. I’m reminded though of a quote attributed to Sydney Harris:
“When I hear somebody sigh, ‘Life is hard,’ I am always tempted to ask, ‘Compared to what?’”
Sydney J. Harris
I’m pretty sure he never, ever actually asked that question.
Robin Saga: The Next Chapter
This is just a quick post updating the saga of our robin family in the front yard crabapple tree. It looks like all 4 chicks are alive and kicking so far.
The parents are very protective. The male robin won’t fly away unless I’m just close enough to touch him. The female is about the same.
For now, the chicks do a lot of napping.
Baby Robins Fill the Nest
It rained for about an hour or so before I could get out to the crabapple to check the progress of the robin hatchlings. Yesterday there were two unhatched eggs but there was a definite hole in one of them.
There are now 4 hatchlings, although the biggest one looks pretty sluggish—and appears to sport a fair-size blister on its butt.
It’ll be at least a week before they look like anything but a light snack for a crow. They’ll get to that little dinosaur stage a few days beyond that. It’ll take a couple of weeks before they fledge—at least the ones who survive. This would be the first time I’ve been able to get video clips. Last year I got snapshots for a little slideshow.
I was surprised at how close the parents allowed me to get. I could have reached out and touched them.
Sena mentioned seeing small birds flying out of the Colorado Blue Spruce on the other side of the front yard. I looked long and hard before I found anything that resembled a nest. Frankly it looks like something that could have been in use last year.
On the other hand, I also noticed the branches shaking in that tree later in the afternoon. And I recall seeing a chipping sparrow streak out of there, perch on the crabapple and chirp at me—nervously.
I’ll keep you posted.
Hatch You Baby Robins!
Yesterday, we noticed 4 eggs in the Robins’ nest. They take about 14 days to incubate and it just so happens time’s up today.
Right on cue the eggs started cracking this morning. It takes all day and it was well after 3:00 PM before there was the tiniest pinhole in the third egg. Two chicks were squirming around when I finally called it a day around 4:30 PM.
This will have to be continued…. Hope it’s not raining tomorrow.
Our Garden So Far
Short post again today in view of the Memorial Day holiday. However, the mood is light here today as Sena adds Gomphrena to our garden. It’s an annual that will attract hummingbirds, like the feeders.
It rained this morning and she got caught in it. She just stayed out there, planting flowers. I stayed dry, trying again to catch videos of hummingbirds through the window.
Hummingbird Adventure
It was a long day so this is a short post. It’s different from other long days in that my wife and I had fun besides doing all the yard work.
Sena got the hummingbird feeders (3) and I mixed the sugar water since I need all the practice I can get regarding cooking. It’s 4 parts water to 1 part sugar.
We’ve got Columbine flowers in our garden and that helps attract hummingbirds.
I’m pooped. That’s all I got.
Go Retire Psychiatrist 