In the 10 days or so that I’ve been out of town, a robin has moved into the teeny tiny tree in my front yard and built a nest. This tree is directly outside of my office window, maybe 30 feet* from where I now sit. There are two little eggs in the nest - I know, because I waited until the mother took off and got the ladder out, climbed up, and looked. I hope that wasn’t a big no-no. I didn’t touch anything, just looked for a few seconds.
I have a bad head for distances, that’s why the header says 50 feet and the body says 30 feet. I think it’s 30 feet, but I’m sure Mr. Athena will come home and say “What are you talking about? That’s 100 yards away!” or some such thing.
Are both Mr. & Mrs. Robin in attendance or has Mr. Robin flown off to Reno to get a divorce? Exactly how small is this tree we are talking about? Is the nest within cat climbing range? That’s something I would be worried about.
The tree is maybe 10 or 12 feet tall. It’s only about 3" or 4" in diameter, so I think it’d be pretty hard for a cat to climb it and get to the nest. I can’t remember the last time I saw a cat in the neighborhood anyways, at least since my cats both went to the great litterbox in the sky.
I’ve already named the babies Pip and Squeak. Anyone know how long it is from egg laying time to hatching? I don’t think the nest was in the tree 10 days ago, so we oughta be able to estimate hatching time pretty closely.
Oh, VERY cool! I did some research, and it seems that the eggs take 12-14 days to hatch from the time the last egg is laid. Most robins lay at least 4 eggs at a rate of one/day, so she may still be laying them now! I’ll have to check late tomorrow and see if there’s another egg up there.
After hatching, they take 12-14 days before they start to fly. So I have about a month of robin watching in front of me!
hagar and edidie covered in snow so deep ya cane see them eddies ran over to hagar and says " springs here finally"
hagar goes"how can ya tell?"
eddie says " i just seen the first robin "
hagar says “oh yeah ? where?”
Eddie says " sitting in front of my fire place drinking a mug of cocoa "
But I remeber waiting for the robins blue jays and cardnials every spring in indiana when i lived there Of course the cat was waiting to do battle also …
My dad has a robin’s nest on his back porch! Last weekend we looked in the nest while Mommy Bird was a way and there were three eggs. Then we went to the movies and when we came back, we showed my brother the nest–and there were FOUR eggs! So I guess we have another week or so before there’s babies. Yay!
My dad was trying to decide if he should put out some bird seed so the mom wouldn’t have to go too far to look. But then we decided that might attract squirrels and cats and things so we decided to just fill up the birdbath and not interfere otherwise. Can’t wait to hear the babies chirping!
For some strange reason, a robin decided to build her nest on the window ledge above our front door. Being the nice people that we are, my family and I are now minimizing door-openings (she flies away immediately when the door opens) and are using the side door instead when feasible.
I should mention that it’s been freezing here lately, and we had serious doubts that her eggs would surrvive.
Two days ago, after never being on the scene before, the “husband” came back (that’s what my daughter calls him). His timing was perfect because later that day the eggs hatched. Mygawd are those new ones tiny. But they keep the parents busy. We are all praying that they’ll learn to fly without problem, since it would devastate my daughter to see one of the babies abandoned on the ground. We’ll see in a week and half.
You might want to talk to your daughter about how the robins learn to fly. All the info I’ve found cautions people against deciding baby robins have been abandoned, since they fall out of the nest on their own while learning to fly. You’re almost certainly going to see 'em on the ground, so you might want to start preparing the LilGauss now.
It is disturbing to see such displays of uncaring male patriarchy and all, leaving the poor mother robin alone to raise the babies while the male is presumably out messing around. Does NOW know about this?
Baby bird are so cute. Just last year, my husband showed me a birds nest in our shed. It had eggs in it and when they hatched, we could see the little birds sticking their heads out looking for food. It was just so neat.