Baby Robins

For the last few weeks, we've had an unintended science project going on just outside our back door. Actually, "unintended" might not be quite as accurate as "unwanted".

A mother robin built her nest on top of a large frame Papa had constructed with the intent to build a loft for the kids' playroom. Construction on the loft started with the first bout of warm weather. If you didn't already know, it snowed here a number of times after that, though. It was (and is) only a large rectangle with a cross-beam, leaning against the back wall of our house, but we really wanted to continue working on it when the weather stabilized. 

So, when the nest started appearing up there, we knocked it down. It rematerialized, and we knocked it down again. Of course, we checked for eggs both times. The third time's a charm, I guess, because mother bird managed to lay three eggs in it before we noticed it. 

"Too late, now."

"I guess the loft is going to have to wait."

I did some research on robin nesting behaviors. For anyone who is interested, this page is an excellent resource and will probably provide you with any information you might need. It turns out that robins typically lay four eggs, one per day, over the course of four days. Then, once the brood is complete, mom will start incubating her eggs so they will all hatch at about the same time. 

By the time we found the nest, we were only one egg short.

As you could probably have guessed, there was a fourth egg the next day, and mom robin started spending a lot of time on her nest. She left a lot more often than any of us expected, but only for very short periods. I assume she was leaving only to eat.

Eleven days after we first found the three eggs in the nest, the friday before Memorial Day, we found that three eggs had hatched. We had one, little, blue hold-out. More than a day later, I just assumed that last little guy wasn't going to make it. But then, he hatched over night. 

The wee ones started out looking like silly putty that had collected some lint under the couch. As I'm writing this, only a week later, they're starting to look like lizards with beaks. They change a lot over a very short period of time. They only spend a week or two in the nest, so they have to grow up fast. I just never knew that the early stages of growing feathers would look more like scales. I guess it's an interesting reminder of the evolutionary process that gave us modern birds.

Once her babies were hatched, she became very protective. In the beginning, she would take an adorable aggressive stance whenever I would go out the back door. She seems to have gotten used to us. 

She feeds them whole worms, grubs, and caterpillars, which she sometimes finds in our yard. And, recently, we've witnessed more than one robin protecting and feeding the babies. I assume the second robin is dad. Who wouldn't need some help with four, growing mouths to feed?

I take pictures of them regularly, and I'm putting together a comic book of our experience with the baby robins, for the kids to have. I wonder if this will happen again next year, but if it doesn't, I never want to forget this.