It's taken me some time but I wanted to share the story of the Robin family. It started in mid to late June when I had a Robin that would come and tap on my patio door window...at first I thought it was just because of it's own reflection...but the bird would go up toward the top of the door as if it was seeking a bug or two...the attacks were always mild...mild compared to the Mockingbird I had do this a few years back...I thought that bird was actually going to break the glass...the window attacks stopped for about a week or so and then they started up again...that's when I noticed...
The beginnings of a nest...I watched as two birds helped to build a nest and occasionally would do a short attack sequence...I then noticed the one bird staying on the nest more and realized there were eggs in the nest...it wasn't long before I realized the pair was starting to fly back and forth more and more with insects in their mouths...and the start of a lovely family was born...and it wasn't long before I could see the little mouths poking up out of the top of the nest...
I watched for days as the two parents continued with the upmost dedication to their young...feeding and primping the little ones...it wasn't long before I could tell there was three little ones...after about five days the birds started raising higher out of the nest and primping their feathers and flapping their little wings...I actually thought they would leave the nest one evening and brought out my camera hoping to catch the action...but was disappointed...even after Mom or Dad tried to call them out...they just were not ready yet...
Well the next morning I watched and was surprised that the Mom and Dad were bringing food to the young...have they given up on getting them out of the nest...this is what I pondered...and so I recorded...about mid morning I looked up and found one was hanging outside of the nest...so I grabbed my camera...while the actual flight is not in the video...you can see the bird one moment and then the next moment there is only two birds left...upon later review of the video I realized Mom and Dad were not feeding the birds at all...but would come over more or less checking up on the birds...perhaps letting them know that they had empty mouths...so the young birds realized that they had to start fending for themselves...
I watched for a couple of other hours...this was around the time of Michael Jackson's passing...and I was watching a lot of news coverage on it..you can even hear some of this on the videos...around mid afternoon there was still two birds in the nest..I left for a while and came back to see only one bird was left in the nest...I missed the the second one taking off...
I watched as the last one was definitely trying to assess his own situation...in the meantime I got a call from my Wife to meet her for our occasional Friday evening meal...while I was getting ready I could tell the last little Robin was definitely getting ready to make that jump...so I grabbed my camera and went to take a video...but the battery ran out...so I quickly changed the batteries looked up just in time to watch the last one take off for the bushes in the back of my yard...dab nabbit I missed getting video of it...
I felt a loss...as my daily entertainment is now gone...at least for this Spring.....
Birdman Blue
