Active Robins: A sign of spring?

Last evening I looked out the window and saw over thirty birds on my front yard.

Many birds in the yard is not that unusual. But when I looked closer, I could see that they were all Robins! Now that is a bit unusual. We usually only see a few at a time around here, and usually not this soon in the year.

Many people here say that when Robins appear in the yard it means that spring has just about arrived. I would like to think that to be true but as I write this it is 25 degrees outside. I wonder if these robins are just passing through. I have heard that the ones that do migrate travel in large groups like this one.

We have become particularly interested in robins since we had the nest in our peach tree, but I don't really know about their migration habits. I'd love to hear from some of you bird experts!

Do the robins know when warmer weather is coming?

I'm Hungry for Spring on Wordless Wednesday!

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A Nuthatch and Signs of Spring!

I know I said I was going to post about tips for making the garden better this year, but first I wanted to show the pictures my wife took yesterday in our back yard. She got some great photos of this nuthatch:

She had read that the nuthatches are the tamest, friendliest birds. She tested that theory by slowly getting real close to it. Our camera doesn't zoom very far so it is hard to tell from the photos how close she is, but look at this next picture and notice that the nuthatch is looking at the camera without flying away!

The only other bird that even attempted to come to the feeder while she was there was this little Tufted Titmouse, but I think he is our little "cat food friend" that I posted about before!

If you scroll back up to the picture of the nuthatch running down the tree, you'll notice that the titmouse is there too, over to the right!

While outside yesterday, my wife and kids noticed many other signs of spring. We are all happy to see that many perennials were coming up under all of that snow we had.

Some of our Irises!

A Hyacinth!

It is a beautiful sunny day here again today, and almost all of the snow has melted and caused a bit of flooding. Look at the standing water in our yard!

The grass is actually looking green already. I am so happy to see the snow gone. I'm not so sure that my children want the snow to be gone. They still played in the tiny bit of snow that was left.

He may be only half a foot tall, but he's pretty cute! I hope he's the last snowman of the season.

Happy pre-spring!

What happened to our Robins?

As I stated yesterday, I want to fill you in on what happened to the robin's nest we found this summer.

Cue the flashback sequence music!

It was on June 15th when we discovered a robin's nest in the lowest branch of one of our peach trees. It was only about four feet off the ground and had three eggs in it.

We checked on the nest every day and the mother seemed to be doing a good job tending her nest. After a few days however, when we checked on the nest we found this:

The nest had nearly fallen out of the tree, but the eggs were still on the ground and not broken. We put the eggs back in the nest and tied the nest more securely to the tree.

We kept checking each day, and a few days later an egg fell out again. This time, I wasn't sure if it would be okay because it was cracked and you could see the fuzzy little bird through the cracks. I put the egg back anyway. This time, the mother bird was screaming at me quite a bit as she sat perched on the neighboring apple tree. I was also pretty uneasy because the local stray cat was watching the whole scene as well.

The next day I went to check on the nest and because of the cat, I expected the eggs to be gone. Instead, I was delighted to find that the broken egg from the day before had completely hatched!

The next day, we all went out to check on them and the baby bird was still there but one of the remaining two eggs were gone! When I looked around on the ground, instead of finding the egg, I found another baby bird that had fallen out. I wasn't sure if I could pick it up without getting my scent on it and causing the mother bird to reject it, so I picked it up using my shirt. I put it back in the nest and tied the nest to the tree even better than before. This was getting a bit ridiculous!

I know this is getting redundant, but the next day...

there were two healthy baby birds but the third egg was gone. It was not on the ground and there was no baby bird either. We weren't too terribly upset, because watching the remaining two babies was a real treat!

The problem was that every time the mother robin took off from the nest, she knocked it over a little bit more. The branch was also getting heavier and heavier because under the nest was a foundation of five growing peaches!

Some time in the next week or so, another baby disappeared. The remaining baby robin seemed to double in size each day until it took up the entire nest. I have no idea how three birds could have fit in that nest.

The remaining baby grew until it looked almost as big as an adult robin. One night it was particularly windy and the next morning the baby robin was gone and blue jays were stealing straw from the nest. I assume they were taking it to use in nests of their own. There is much recycling in nature.

So what happened to the baby robin and its mother? Through our research of how robins raise their young, we learned that the mother kicks the baby out a couple of weeks BEFORE it knows how to fly. She continues to care for it in the undergrowth of thickets and small woods. We have plenty of that at the edge of our yard, so we'd like to think that "Junior" survived to adulthood just fine. We're pretty sure that he would have had no chance at all without our intervention.

Regardless of his fate, that nest in our peach tree was a true blessing to our family. How wonderful it was to see God's work in nature at such close range! It was neat to see the babies hatch and the surviving baby grow! It was also neat to see the mother so diligently taking care of her young!

So ever since that surviving baby robin left us, when I see a robin in the yard, I think to myself "I bet that's Junior!"

This Weather is for the Birds!

I'm not sure when people began saying things they didn't like was for the birds, but when it comes to cold weather I don't think the birds like it much! They do enjoy the seed that we give them in our back yard though. We have quite an assortment of birds, and my daughters really enjoy learning the names of each kind. This winter, we have more cardinals than ever before.

That is appropriate since the cardinal is the Kentucky State Bird! They don't seem to like being photographed at the feeders though! Every time we try to take their picture from the window, they fly up in to the tree. Even though we can't get a good close-up of them, these pictures show how many cardinals we have as visitors.

All of the birds are bashful when we try to take their picture or get close to them. All of them except this one little Tufted Titmouse!

He came to the window begging for us to put more cat food out! I guess he saw the cats do it successfully, so he tried it too. He must have been pretty proud of himself because it worked for him as well!

Writing about the birds and cold snowy weather makes me think of our baby robins form this past warm and sunny summer! I reported this past summer when we found the nest and when the nest had problems, but I never wrote about what happened to those sweet little robins!

I will get my pictures together and have a post about them tomorrow! Seeing all of those pictures of summer will help me get through the ice and snow that we will have here tonight and tomorrow! :)

Robin's Nest NOT so Peachy!

It should be almost time for the robin eggs in our peach tree to hatch. I checked on the nest this morning and found that the nest had almost fallen out of the tree. Two of the eggs were on the ground!

If you missed my post, The Robin's nest is Peachy from the other day, then you don't know that this is a pretty big deal to my family. My daughters are praying for these little birds and checking on them daily. My wife said that one egg fell out yesterday afternoon. It appeared unharmed and she put it back in the nest. The mother robin then came back and kept sitting on the eggs as if nothing had happened.

This time, two eggs fell out, and again they were not broken. They also were not wet, so they must have just fallen out. I put the eggs back in the nest and asked myself, how can we keep this from continuing to happen? I don't know if it will work, but I put a rope around the nest and tied it to the branch nearby.

It may be too small of a branch, but it was the closest one that is growing up instead of down. I hope the mother comes back. I took my camera out there this morning in hopes of catching a picture of her on the nest. Imagine my surprise to have to photograph this instead.

What do you think? Will the eggs be okay? Do you think they can still hatch? Do you think the mother bird will come back or be upset that I disturbed her nest? We are hoping for a happy ending. I'll keep you posted.

The Robin's Nest is Peachy!

I know I haven't posted in a while, but that doesn't mean that nothing has been going on out in the garden! I have recorded much progress with the vegetable garden, the flower gardens, and the fruit trees and will be posting regularly now. My daughter wanted me to show this to you first.

A Robin has made a nest and laid eggs in our peach tree (she laid a third egg after this picture was taken). My daughter is very excited and watches the momma bird with binoculars. The problem is that I was in the process of staking my fruit trees because they are leaning a bit. Guess I'll have to wait at least a few more weeks to straighten this tree.

I did manage to straighten an apple tree that is next to this peach. I didn't even see the birds nest. Children are much better at noticing such things. The nest is low - right at my daughter's eye level. It has a nice foundation of eight or nine half-size peaches.

Look at how low and wide open the nest is. We are a bit worried about predetors. My daughter is praying for those baby birds, but it may take a miracle to keep a hawk or something from spotting them. Is there anything that we can do to help their fate? From researching Robins we think the eggs should hatch around June 24th or so. We'll keep you posted on how they are doing.