Back in May of this year, I had the pleasure to witness a robin’s nest come to life with robin eggs and babies that grew up and later flew away.  I had only seen robin eggs and robin babies in online videos and photos up to that point.  What a surprise it was to find out that we had a robin choose our home as their home to nest their babies! 😀

The following is somewhat of a chronology of what I saw as I tried to stay inconspicuous while peering into their nest and yet wanting to take lots of videos and photos at the same time.

May 7:

We were first alerted to this when we saw some twigs and blue twine on the ground of our front porch.  We noticed a bird flying in and out of our porch and eventually noticed this little birdie’s nest!

May 8:

At first, I was very cautious about taking any photos because I didn’t want to scare away the bird.  If she felt threatened, she might abandon the nest and I certainly didn’t want that to happen.  Thus, I tried to stay quiet and hidden from view as I crept on her.

May 9:

As I watched day by day, she was bringing back tiny worms for the babies.  The babies had hatched!  At this point, I didn’t know how many babies there were because I hadn’t seen the eggs.

May 10:

I continued to watch every day.  It was so fun!  I was distracted completely.

I was so curious about the babies and whether they had hatched or not that I actually put my phone on a selfie stick and brought it close to the nest to try to get video footage.  Unfortunately, the nest had been pushed back and my video only showed the top of the lamppost.  For a split second, I thought that the nest was gone!

May 14:

On this day, I was still curious about whether the babies had been hatched yet (I wasn’t certain).  Thus, I put out a ladder and climbed on it to snap a photo (since yesterday’s selfie stick trick didn’t work).  I was really careful about doing it stealthy and as quick as possible.  I again waited for the mother robin to go out and then quickly put the ladder out.  When I took this photo, I couldn’t see what was in it at first because the nest had sunk so low into the back of the lamp.

I wasn’t even sure if the babies were alive because they weren’t moving at all and just a pile of ‘stuff’.  Of course now looking back, they were all there and probably just adjusting to the real world and hadn’t even opened their eyes yet.  You can see their beaks!

May 15:

I was reassured that the babies were indeed alive the next day when I saw the mother robin continue to peer down at me from her nest.

While I was at work, my mom sent me this video and photos of the mother robin feeding the babies!  They were alive, all right! 😀  What a great shot!

May 16:

They really rose their heads up the following day for their feedings.  Look at their wide open beaks!

It was fascinating and remarkable to watch all of this to say the least!  I had a front-row view! 😀

May 17:

As I watched, the mom was back every five minutes or so to feed the babies.  It wasn’t long for me to wait as I filmed her to see her bringing food to the nest.

May 18:

They were getting big!

May 20:

A lot more fur now and they look like actual birds.

May 21:

This was the last shot I got of them in the nest.

My boo was actually picking me up for our date and as he stood on the front porch, the birds were screeching at him a bit.  When I opened the front door and he walked to the door, the birds all screeched and flew out from their nest and into the trees.  It was at that point that we mistakenly chased all of the birds away and we had an empty nest.  It wasn’t on purpose, of course!  But that’s how the birds left the nest.

– – –

Then in July, we were blessed again with a second robin nest just as we were about to dismantle the first nest!  What happened was that my mom was in the process of taking off the nest from the lamp when she inadvertently swung the contents of the nest into the plastic bag that she was holding.  To her bewilderment and surprise, there were three robin eggs in there!  We had expected an empty nest.  At the time, I remember being very confused about this finding.  It wasn’t possible that the robin eggs were left over from the first nesting and since they were so blue and well-formed, it had to be new eggs and we were just there at the right place at the right time.  I hurriedly asked my mom to put the eggs back into the nest and to leave the nest alone.  It was a second live nest!  I was also confused because up until that point, I had not seen any robins flying in and out near our house like the first time.  Also, I didn’t think that robins reused nests.  This new mother robin had patched in fresh old grass above the old nest.

However, the next day, indeed, we saw the mother robin rest in the nest.  We were confirmed a second nest!

For this second nest, I didn’t pay as much attention as I did to the first one even though we would be seeing this nest come to life from the literal beginning to end.  It also appeared that this mother robin was more careless than the first one.  I thought that because this robin didn’t seem to mind that we opened and shut the front door at all — she didn’t fly away whereas the first one always did.  This mother robin seemed a little silly too because she always looked at us while we were going in and out of our house but never made any actions to fly away.  It was clear that the birds had different personalities.

Since I wasn’t paying as much attention to this second nest, the babies grew up quickly and I barely took photos (unlike the first nest).  Also, I realized that while the three babies were growing up, there appeared to be tiny mites on our front door (I had read online about baby birds having mites on them).  It was disgusting to say the least and I was fearful for my own health.  The tiny insects were bothersome and I couldn’t wait for the birds to grow up and leave the nest so that we could clean the area.  Also, this nest seemed dirtier than the first one because our front porch had much more poop on the ground than the first one (which didn’t have any at all).

Finally, after about a week after the baby birds left the nest and it was clear that they were gone, we took down the nest and cleaned our front porch and door.  Good riddance but how lucky we were to be chosen twice as robin nest homes.

I’m really glad that I got to witness a robin’s nest and their growing babies.  I wonder if a robin will choose our front door again next year? 🙂

– – –

July 14:

This young mother nesting.

July 23:

I didn’t really pay that much attention to this brood.  By this point, the babies were hatched already and already growing quickly.

July 24:

July 27:

By this point, the mites were getting really bad and I didn’t take photos from the upper window anymore — only from afar.

Disgusting to think, but I think the black dots on the top of the nest were mites (>.<).

July 28:

This was the very last I saw of the baby birds — the last photo I took of them.

This second nest flew away shortly afterwards.  I didn’t even notice the little fledglings bounce around in the yard either.

Thank you again for sharing your growing-up journey with us! 🙂