I’m sorry, I thought you were talking about when the two of them were fending off the snake. Around my house I rarely see male robins so when I do see a bright orange chest that’s when I know.
Looks like you have an excellent set if robin parents there! What where you going to do if the snake got within striking distance of the nest?
I had mixed feelings about that. I dislike interfering with nature, but I didn’t want the snake to eat the chicks, either. As I watched the snake climb, I learned a lot about how they do it, and the location of the nest was probably a very good thing. I think this snake could have climbed any tree to any height, but house siding is a different matter.
I was also interested in how the snake thought this extra effort was worth it. It somehow detected the presence of a snack, and I wonder how.
After watching the snake for a half-hour, I didn’t think it was possible that it could move horizontally from the top of the door to the nest due to smooth siding and a vertical orientation, so I let nature take its course, and the snake eventually fell to the porch and went away. I think it went under the porch to look for a chipmunk.
The climbing method was amazing. The snake would stretch up against the wall, then use its tail as a brace and lever, since it couldn’t grab on to anything, but it could lean. Then when the tail left the ground, all hope was lost and it fell down. It had better luck spanning a 6 inch gap between the door edge and siding in the corner.
I took some still pix, and I’ll see if any are worth posting.
Here are some stills from the snake incident.
Closeup. Is this a Northern Water Snake?
Showing the climbing initiation. I don’t have a shot of it extending, but it was able to reach 3+ ft from ground before it fell off.
Using anything available on the wall, it started climbing up, but far to the right of the nest & shelf. The siding uprights are 1x2’s cut in half lengthwise, so nominally .5"x2". Hard for a snake to grab onto something that thin, but it works in the corner.
Spanning between two uprights, it was able to reach the top of the door.This method wouldn’t have worked closer to the nest shelf, as none of the uprights were that close together, and there was no auxiliary support like the electrical outlet.
Showing it above the door. From here, it climbed around, but couldn’t find a way to the nest, which was in the opposite direction. Then it lost the perch and fell down all the way.
Ho;y crap. I don’t have anything against snakes, but having a five-footer right outside my door would freak me out. I’ll bet you don’t have any mice, however.
Snakes are nice, as long as they aren’t poisonous and stay outside, and they do keep the mice down. However, I caught 40 mice in my basement in the last 10 months (I keep track of such things), so maybe this snake dude isn’t doing his job. I’ll give him a break, though, as winter isn’t an active time for snakes and it is for mice.
There’s no question that both parents are feeding the chicks, and removing the fecal sacs as well. I just saw one robin leave the nest and another arriving with fresh worms less than 2 seconds later.
The only difference between the orange breast area is one looks a little scruffier than the other.
After learning how snakes climb stuff, I have no doubt that if a snake had come by last year, when the nest was atop a 6 ft stepladder, it could have scaled the ladder to the nest and cleaned it out. So it’s a good thing that this year’s nest is much safer, since before, I could not have removed the ladder without removing the nest.
That’s how my downy woodpeckers were w/ their chicks; a few minutes at most would pass btwn the parents going and returning one after the other.
There’s a lot of activity in the nest today. At least one chick is standing on the edge of the nest and flapping wings a lot. I think they are going to be flying very soon. If you tune in to the link and see a lake instead of a nest, then they have all left and I have moved the camera.
I think one of the chicks has left the nest, and the remaining two are almost ready to go. Mama is feeding them infrequently now, and they are flapping a lot and crowding each other. One more day and they should graduate.
That makes two successful chick raisings right on your front porch!
Go go go baby robins! Have a wonderful life.
And then there was one…
All gone. I’m a little bummed.
Thanks again, Musicat.
The last chick to go left a message for us.
It’s too early for me to be this weepy.
I saw a robin cleaning the nest this morning. Is Mom going to lay more eggs?
Other posters in this thread say that they don’t re-use nests. I wonder if I cleared off the shelf, would they build another nest this season, or wait until next?
Trying to get their security deposit back.
Sorry, it’s non-refundable. Although I guess they could sue me for using them as reality TV actors without signing a release. We’ll talk.
Narrator: Robin Kardashian was the most reluctant participant.
“No privacy! I couldn’t even carry away a fecal sac w/o being watched by hundreds of eyes, like some kind of an animal!”