The Robin Family

For the second year in a row, a robin built her nest in my largest aloe plant on the front porch. Perhaps it is my own impending motherhood, but this year I feel especially attached to the little birds. It has become the highlight of my day to watch the babies grow each day. (Sorry, I didn't get around to taking pictures of the pretty blue eggs.) The babies hatched on Mother's Day.

Just hatched! Naked and blind.

Feathers are starting to come in!

Some of them have open eyes!

Two weeks after they hatched, disaster struck: a neighbor's cat found the nest. At 3am, D and I heard angry chirping outside the front door. The aloe plant had been tipped over, and only two of the birds were left in the nest. The mama bird was no where to be seen. And the two birds that were left in the nest looked a little worse for the wear. One was splayed out awkwardly, but wouldn't tolerate us touching him to help him get in a better position; the other was curled up on the bottom of the nest, apparently sleeping through it all (at first we thought he was dead, but after some mild poking he started moving a bit more). I took the flashlight down to the parking lot below our porch (we live on the second floor), and found one of the other babies just sitting by our car, as calm as can be. She immediately climbed onto my hand, and snuggled up as I held her close to keep her warm.

We returned her to the nest with her brothers and restored the aloe plant to its rightful place. About 15 minutes after going back to bed, D heard a thump on the porch and ran out to scare away the cat, who had returned for a second helping. He (D) then proceeded to stand guard at the front door for a few hours to make sure the cat didn't come back, while also looking up ways to take care of baby birds in case the mama robin wouldn't return to her disturbed nest. (Fortunately, she did come back by the morning). We lost one baby, but three survived the night.

Starting to get too big for their nest.

Almost ready to fly!

We continued to keep an eye on the birds, especially at night. D worked on ways to "cat proof" the porch. His natural night owl tendencies were helpful in keeping watch over the little ones, since the cat only came around late at night. The birds continued to grow and their feathers started filling in nicely. D named them - Amelia, Orville, and Wilbur. (Amelia is the one I rescued from the parking lot, Orville is the awkward gangly one, and Wilbur is the sleepy one).

But then, D went out of town. The first night he was gone, the cat came early. I ran outside to see Mama Robin facing off with the cat in the parking lot. My mom suggested I sprinkle chili powder on the steps to deter the cat, and that seemed to work well for the first night.

But this morning, I woke up to this sight:

It seems that sometime after I went to bed, the cat came back. I'm not sure exactly what transpired, but my guess is that the cat probably got at least one of the birds. I'm hoping the other two were strong enough to fly away in time. There are two white clumps on the porch that indicate that perhaps two of the babies were just knocked out of the nest, spent a little bit of time wandering on the porch, and then were able to fly away. I'd like to say that all three flew away, but clearly the cat got into the plant at some point. I wasn't awakened by furious chirping from either the baby birds or Mama Robin, and Mama Robin isn't sitting on the telephone wire loudly lamenting the loss of her babies, so I am fairly confident that at least one or two of the babies were able to fly to safety. Or, at least, that's what I'm telling myself. Of course, I'll never really know. But the journey was interesting while it lasted.

Here are some fun facts about robins: While Mama Robin is the one who builds the nest and sits on the eggs, Papa Robin does help care for the babies after they've hatched. He assists with feeding and protection. The parent robins remove any waste from the nest (the avian version of a diaper change) so it doesn't get messy. It takes about two weeks for baby robins to be able to leave their nest, and even then they can only fly short distances. They hide in bushes and follow their parents around, still depending on food for another few weeks. It turns out that only 25% of robin chicks will survive the first year. The good news for Mama Robin is that she can lay up to three broods each season, each with 3-5 eggs. She'll use a new nest for her next round of babies, so I won't get to watch the new little ones grow up, but hopefully she'll move into safer territory next time.