I’m glad you’re there to keep an eye out! Even though their parents are nearby, this is their most vulnerable time; only 25% of robins survive their first year.
I always feel like this is a dangerous time for bird babies - they are on the ground a lot and sometimes they forget they can fly.
Darn it! I forgot to check this morning then had to leave. I hope everyone’s safe. Congratulations on launching a new generation, Musicat!
When I left work, there was a baby robin chasing one of its parents across the lawn, cheeping like mad and begging to be fed! They’re everywhere!
The nest has been empty all night. Either no one came back, or they didn’t stay long enough for me to spot them. I’ll give them a few days, but that ladder has got to leave the porch soon. I don’t see or hear robins of any age in the yard today, or at least, not close by.
I just turned the sound up and heard a weird, repeating scraping sound. It almost sounded like someone playing drums in the distance. I went to the door and saw a large gray squirrel chewing on the porch. That explains why the paint has been disappearing recently. I thought only porcupines wanted salt from that source, but maybe squirrels do, too.
I’m going to have to spray the porch floor again with animal repellent. I refrained from doing that while the birds were there, but I’m losing a lot of floor.
I didn’t see visitors at all last night myself; it’s been over 12 hours, they’re probably not coming back.
The nest is such an inviting, perfectly round circle. How do they engineer them so well?
Better remove it soon. I seem to remember that birds like robins can raise more than one brood per season, and they just might return to their perfect nest and fill it full of eggs before you know it.
I wonder if I removed the ladder, but built a shelf and kept the nest there, would they still use it? I certainly don’t mind the nest activity as long as the ladder isn’t required. And maybe I could put up a better camera.
In a way, the location is ideal. The porch roof shields it from the sky and provides rain protection. No hawk or eagle can see it from above.
It’s worth a shot. They won’t care that it’s been touched or moved, birds aren’t as particular as people used to think.
But they are bound to notice the ladder missing, even if the nest is still there. And I will have to trim off some of the lower part of the nest – unlike the perfect, tight roundness of the top, the bottom is pretty loose and sloppy and may fall apart if I move it.
I’ll see if I can find a scrap of outdoor lumber I can use as a shelf and pick up some brackets tomorrow.
Musicat! You’re good people! The nest is beautiful, but it’s so sad seeing it empty.
If you think the squirrels are after salt, what about putting out a salt block? You can get them very cheaply at feed stores. Might serve both purposes of helping the squirrels as well as saving your wood.
I have a salt block in an old tree stump, 20 ft away and it is there year-round and has been for at least 5 years. I just checked, and yep, it’s still there. I tried putting one on a stone wall as well, but it stains the wall.
Conversely, I rarely put salt on the wood part of the porch in winter, and try to flush the surface in the spring. And the wild animals eat right through the paint and chew the wood – not just scrape the surface, but chew on the wood like termites.
From what I know about birds, they usually don’t use the same nest twice. So you can remove the ladder and the nest - but building a permanent shelf is a great idea!
We have hanging baskets on our porch which have been used twice by mourning doves for nests, and wrens roost in them regularly. It’s a lot of fun to watch them. A shelf would offer the same opportunity.
Nice sign! And it looks like you’re having a good lightning storm as well.
Robincam Redux.
So it’s been a year. Once the nest was no longer used, I removed it and stored the ladder away from the porch. I built a small shelf about where the top of the ladder was, just in case.
And a week ago, a robin built a nest on the shelf. For a few days, I thought the new nest had been abandoned, but today, one robin has been sitting on the nest much of the day.
So I repositioned the webcam in the previous mounting socket, and you can see it at the same link as in the OP:
Hopefully, the birds won’t be upset by the camera, so we’ll see. No eggs in the nest yet.
I might want to move the cam a little closer, but I don’t want to take a chance at scaring them off, so I’ll leave it there for now.
It prompts me to log in, so I can’t see anything. 
We are at the mercy of natural light. I can turn on the porch light, which might disturb the birds, or leave it off, then all you can see is up to the sun & moon (which is minimal right now). I’ll try a little of each. From 9PM to 4AM local time, there isn’t much natural light on the subject this season. Other times, the backlight might be greater than the light on the nest. Best viewing time seem to be in the (local) afternoon. So sue me already.
BTW, the time stamp on the video is wildly off. I can’t find a way to fix the inaccurate clock, so just ignore it.
The egg laying seems to be about 3 weeks behind last year. I don’t know what the reason is, or if it will be a factor. Nature is a fickle and cruel mistress, you bet.
As I write this, the porch light is on, the robin is sitting on the nest, but I haven’t yet seen any eggs.
Perhaps I misinterpreted your post. Are you unable to view the video? There should be no login required. Here is an alternate link that should work for everyone:
https://video.nest.com/live/9X6Gdu
This is cool. Thanks for letting us view.
Should that light be on? Great for us, but also convenient for hungry predators.
The predators would have to have flight as an attribute, so raccoons and foxes are out. Owls would have to be in just the right place to see under the porch roof.
Nevertheless, I think I’ll turn the porch light off shortly. Y’all can watch in the daylight.