6936 crop - Sibling Robins
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My wonderful experience observing a pair of Robins and their offspring came to an end this weekend and I find my day to be be really lacking their presence.
First egg was discovered on June 15th, the 3rd was in place on the 17th, observed mom doing her incubation thing beginning more or less Thursday of that week. They apparently hatched on the weekend of June 27th (no clue if it was one at a time in succession/order of being laid or?....) but noticed the hatchlings on the 29th of June in any case.
I think I read that there is only a 2 week span from birth to fledgling flight but I guess I expected some hanging around and gradual weaning instead of an abrupt departure. I recall the little ones being barely able to hold their little heads up, eyes closed and nearly bereft of feathers and it seemed like all of a sudden they had colorful pin feathers and open eyes. Little tweets and chirps turned into a clamoring twitter and obvious verbal communication with the parents. At one point it was obvious that my movement in the doorway or window was disruptive so I set up a blind of sorts in the living room with camera and 400 zoom on tripod behind a blanket to hide me. This allowed me to observe their interaction, body language and expressions. I was very surprised to learn that a Robin has brown eyes!, and that the mother interacted differently with the hatchlings than the father.
This past Friday (July 10th), the contractor doing garage repair related that he thought he saw the parents doing flight training in the front yard with what I presume to be the eldest of the brood (back of the nest in this shot)...Saturday there were all three still in what became a very crowded nest and both Mom and Pop Robin were feeding these guys like crazy but the larger one or eldest didn't partake as often. He even appeared to be disinterested while the other two were frenetic the moment a parent came to roost with some tidbit... Saturday evening the eldest was even perched outside the nest stretching his wings and testing his balance. I think their state of development is pretty obvious, the one in the back or far right was the most developed, the one on the far left was the obvious second with the middle one still showing downy feathers on it's little head and other signs of being behind the other two...
Sunday morning there were three, by mid afternoon the youngest was in the nest and one of the others was on the doorsteps. I observed Mom and Pop nearby and can only imagine that they encouraged it to take flight and off to a neighboring tree it went....leaving just junior all by his lonesome. Then, later that afternoon...junior jumped ship and hopped away, not ready to fly but obviously driven by instincts to head out as well....
So today, I'm feeling the loss..... an odd sense of "empty nest syndrome", an empty nest in the tree, well used and having served it's purpose. But now what!!? ... Will they refurbish for a second brood? or have the parents moved on to build another nest...and what of the little ones and their futures?! ....
I feel so fortunate to have been able to observe the whole process from construction to departure.
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Uploaded on Jul 13, 2009
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6354bw
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The damn safety boat roamed around the frames during the entire sequence of shots though I was able to crop many of them to eliminate this distraction.
All rights reserved
Uploaded on Jul 13, 2009
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