Yay, this one worked! Yes, it had asked for me to supply a password before. But now it works and I’ll be happy to look at it in the daylight.
Yay! Just found this! I somehow missed it the first time around. Good luck, momma!
Haven’t seen any eggs yet, but Momma Bird has been doing a lot of nest-sitting, and the camera angle isn’t too good to see if there are eggs even when she leaves. In order to see into the nest, I have to climb a small stepladder, so I’ll do that when the opportunity arises.
Checking last year’s posts, this year’s nest has been started about 3 weeks later than last. Weather hasn’t been that different, so I don’t know why. Might not be significant.
I haven’t seen two robins at the same time, so I wonder if this is only one-half of a pair, and any eggs might be unfertilized? I guess time will tell.
I just saw your bump. It’s too late for me to watch tonight, but I certainly will tomorrow! Thank you for doing this again, Musicat. I enjoyed it very much last year.
The porch light bulb burned out last night, so today, when Momma-B was absent, I climbed on the stepladder, replaced the bulb, and took a closeup of the nest from above. 3 blue eggs! Momma has been busy!
Nice! What a pretty color. I have a woodpecker family in my half-dead cherry tree and while I don’t know how many babies they have, I know they’re hungry!
Our power just went out in a thunderstorm (9:26PM CDT), so in a few minutes, the webcam and Internet will go out when my UPS runs out. (I’m writing this on emergency power.) See you in the morning, I guess!
So wonderful! Thank you for sharing! How long until they hatch?!
I’m not sure how long, and I’m not exactly sure when they were laid. Maybe if I went back in this thread, I could figure out the likely sequence of events. However, the nesting process this year is a few weeks behind last year. This time last year, the chicks had already left the nest.
I’m wondering why I haven’t seen the other half of the robin pair, assuming there is one. Could be just timing. For all I know, the one sitting on the nest is not the same one all the time. But would a female ever lay unfertilized eggs?
Robins can do anywhere from one to three broods a year( usually 2-3 )and usually make new nest for each brood. It takes a few days to make a nest and about a month to incubate( ~two weeks ) and fledge( ~two weeks )a brood. So they may have already produced a brood elsewhere in your neighborhood and this is #2 or #3 :).
The female does something like 99% of the incubating, so any bird you see on the nest is highly likely to be mama. Dad usually sleeps elsewhere, roosting with a bunch of other males. But he should be around during daylight hours.
Still incubating today. Compared to the rest of the Midwest, we are very cool (73F max). Thunderstorms are expected tonight, but the robin nest should be in a safe place, under the porch roof. If you watch late tonight (after 10PM CDT), you might see lightning on the webcam, in the background, but no guarantees.
After a lot of incubating, it looks like we have some robin babies in the nest. Can’t see them too well, as the camera is not positioned perfectly and the nest is deep, but I think I see some beaks and feathers when Mom flies off for food. We should see more as they grow.
The sound is supposed to be enabled, but I can’t hear anything. Dunno why – it worked last year and it’s the same camera and connection.
ETA: Definitely two chicks at least. Momma is bringing them tasty grubs and worms. No ice cream just yet.
Yay. I noticed them not long ago, and took me this much time just to search the thread out 
Looking forward to watching those lil’ guys fluff up and all!
Three eggs, three chicks confirmed. They lie low when Mama isn’t around, then stretch their long necks to the sky when Mama shows up with mmm… tasty grubs. Mama seems to want to poke them a lot, even now that they are responding so actively. Wonder why PokeMom?
I got an email from some dude who was upset because the cam was focused on a bird nest instead of the usual Lake Michigan view. He wanted to know when he could look at the lake again. He likes to surf in front of my house, and the cam gives him a good idea of what the wave conditions are before he heads to the shore. I told him he would have to wait until the chicks could fly away.
Maybe the poking somehow aids their digestion, or makes them poo? Or she’s counting them and keeps losing track?
I heard the parent robins making a lot of noise, both of them, and looked out the door to find a 5-foot long snake on the porch, trying to get to the nest. I couldn’t see how it could climb 6 feet on a wall, but I watched for a while, and he made his way up and over the door. He was able to get up about 3 feet on the vertical wall beneath the nest, but there was nothing he could grab on to there, so he fell off. Once he was above the door, he couldn’t find a horizontal way to approach the nest, but he sure tried. Eventually he fell off the ledge and I think he went under the porch.
Did you know that robins can hover just like hummingbirds? They were approaching the snake and hovered for a few seconds, never close enough that the snake could strike, but enough that I’m sure he was annoyed at all the squawking.
Is the male helping with feeding?
Hard to tell. Since I saw two robins at once during the snake incident, I’m pretty sure both parents exist and are active, but I can’t tell them apart. Normally, only one bird is seen feeding the chicks, and I assume they are alternating.
The male’s chest should be a brighter orange than the female’s.
Easy for a bird expert to say, hard for me to detect. The chest area is hidden when they are sitting on the nest, and unless I see both of them side-by-side, hard to tell if one is brighter. They are rarely side-by-side.