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!
Tag: bird watching
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.
Looking for Hummingbirds
My wife and I are trying to attract hummingbirds this weekend. This is a new project for us. She got a couple of feeders and some nectar we mixed with water and a little beer. No, I’m kidding; we wouldn’t try to get any hummingbirds drunk.
One of the feeders is pretty fancy. You know, it sort of looks like an upside-down beer bottle–just sayin’.
I’ve tried to get snapshots and videos of hummingbirds before. They’re usually pretty blurry and jittery, just like the birds.
We’re hoping that the flowers will help lure them to our garden.
They probably don’t care for Allium; it’s in the onion family.
We’ve got a garden ornament that might help draw them. And as long as our garden goonbird (a well-known cryptid) behaves and doesn’t scare them off–we might see the little guzzlers in a few days.
The Robins Try Again
We have a couple of brand new birds’ eggs in what may be a second nest by the robin pair. Now that made me wonder about whether or not the first nest under our deck was a decoy or dummy nest. You probably won’t believe me, but I thought of that before I googled it.
What got me wondering was the nest the robins build under our deck about a week ago and which they seemingly abandoned. See the progress in the video:
My last picture of the first robins’ nest showed that it was empty.
There was only one egg that ever turned up in this nest.
And then we found the new robins’ nest in our front yard crab apple tree.
a messy and very obvious robins’ nest
I wondered if the nest under our backyard deck was a dummy or decoy nest, maybe to discourage a persistent birdwatcher. I checked the web and found a short article on Sialis, “Dummy and Abandoned Nests.” Since Google identified the site as “Not secure,” I can just summarize that the author (who is not identified), reports that some males build nests to provide the female with a number of choices. She picks one and finishes the nest–much more neatly.
Some birds build decoy nests because they might have been scared by a possible predator in the area–like a large black crow in our area, which actually did make off with an entire clutch of House Finch nestlings only a week ago.
I found another web site that essentially gave the same explanation and both mentioned somebody named Benjamin E. Leese, who wrote about this topic in something called BlueBird Journal, Summer 2018, p.14 and 15. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the article, possibly because it’s a print journal and not available on line.
Another thing I wonder about: if the crab apple nest is the real McCoy and the under-the-deck nest was a decoy (hey, those rhyme), the problem with the crab apple nest is that, when approached from the back, it’s wide open to flying predators.
front door back door
Anyway, both nests were done in a couple of days, although the crab apple nest probably was done after the under-the-deck model. I’m pretty confident that the breeding pair built both of them. I know they all look alike, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it, evidence or no.
This reminds me of another nest that robins built on our property a few years ago, this one right between our house and the rail of our deck. It was a real Hoorah’s Nest!
Hoorah! 
Hip Hoorah! 
Hip Hip Hoorah! 
Hip Hip Hip Hoorah!
Walking the Terry Trueblood Trail in May
We took a walk on the Terry Trueblood Trail yesterday and saw quite a few birds even though it’s early in the season. We caught sight of Orchard Orioles and got a snapshot for the first time of a bird that can fool you into thinking it’s a robin.
There are a lot of Tree Swallows nesting out there. It’s too soon for babies. Sena got a couple of great shots of a sassy Red-Winged Blackbird. I got my first good shot of a Gray Catbird.
It’s very peaceful out there—except when the bugs fly up your nose.
When we got home, we noticed the House Finches flitting around the juniper tree where the giant crow stole all their chicks the other day. It looks like they’re planning to rebuild. Foolhardy.
Papa House Finch 
Mama House Finch
The robins may have abandoned their nest under the deck but they’ve built a regular Hoorah’s Nest in our front yard crabapple tree. It still needs a proper floor.
Go Retire Psychiatrist 