Empty Nesters

We had some visitors this summer.

I suppose, technically speaking, we have similar visitors every summer and last year was no exception.  The birdies were in one of the hanging baskets of flowers last year and I accidentally sprayed them while watering the flowers.  The four little birdies went flying out of the nest while mom and dad came in at me like a military attack!  Their frantic chirping was apparently some type of distress signal meant to summons help and soon, I had four adult robins within about 3 feet of my head all chirping/screaching wildly while I was using the water from the hose as my protection.  All the while trying not to step on two of the babies (who were really more toddler aged, as far as bird years go) who had "flown" from the nest in the hanging basket and got no further than a few feet away and on the deck.

So, that was fun...

This year, the parents built the nest in a bird feeder that I believe was made by Momma's Grandpa Maynard. It's mounted to the railing of our deck and contains a feeder box that's just about the perfect size for a nest.

And here is that feeder with Momma birdie sitting pretty guarding her four precious little eggs.

The four eggs, quite obviously.  This was the second group of eggs that appeared in the nest.  The first ones didn't last very long as we have raccoons and stray cats out here by the thousands.  Okay, that's exaggerating, but we do have quite a few.

Small Chinese boy was enamored with the eggs.  It was a fantastic tool for teaching the boys many things about birds and bird nests.  One of the best lessons though related to a Blue Jay trying to infiltrate Fort Birdie and getting his butt handed to him by the Robins.  Robby always asks questions about, "what would happen if someone tried to take me?".  I tell him that while Daddy would fight to the death to keep that from ever happening, there's a monster inside of Momma's that only comes out when someone is trying to do irreparable harm to her kiddies.  Robby got to see that when Momma bird and the Momma-Bird-Mafia whooped that Blue Jay and gave him good reason to not return. As far as we know, he never did.  Robby was impressed.  Does he feel any more secure?  Hard to say, but at least he got to see a little example of Monster Momma.  :-)

I think this is Momma, and I liked this picture.  She got to the point where she would only be nervous, but would stay at the nest while we were outside.  Early on, she would fly out to look-out posts whenever the inside door opened.

This was one of the look-out posts where she would chirp for reinforcements if she felt threatened.

The big day!  Momma was watching as baby number one cracked thru the egg and shimmied out. 

Momma and Daddy took turns going out to find meals.  We would use those opportunities to go out and check their growth/other eggs hatching and so-on.  Generally speaking, we allowed only one visit to the nest per day as to not cause the birdies undo distress.  This was a fun time to watch though. The feedings, the way Momma made herself twice as big to cover the babes from the rain and so on.  All great stuff and pretty interesting to boot.

And here is the first born of the brood.  Ready to fly the nest.  I never did see the babies leave the nest, but the day after this picture was taken...

Ma and Pa Birdie were empty nesters!