Baby Robins!

We've been having a great time at the nursing home where I work, watching some Robins with their babies. They built a nest right outside a window in our residents TV lounge, allowing us to have a front row seat to the whole event. Both residents and staff really enjoyed watching this.

Here's the mom building the nest.  She would fly in with the nest materials in her beak, place it on the nest, then wiggle around to smooth it out.  Then - off she went to do it all over again.

 

Two days later the nest was done and there were 4 eggs.  It wasn't easy to get this picture because she rarely left the nest.

 

Here she is in her customary position.  What a good Mom!

 

Then one day the eggs hatched.  You can still see one egg intact.  Later that day, they had all hatched.  I must say - baby robins aren't very cute!

 

It was fun to watch her feed them.  Sometimes the male Robin would show up and give her something, which she would then feed to the babies.

 

"I'm hungry, Mom!

 

They grew fast...

 

Not much room in that nest anymore.

 

They're getting so big they are sitting on each other.  Right after I took this picture one of them flew off and by later in the day they had all left.  We saw them hopping around in the yard for a few days though.

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Back to an empty nest - with a little wear and tear.
I was really surprised by how fast this went.  The eggs hatched after 4 days and 2 weeks after hatching they were gone.  We really miss watching them!

"Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?"
Matthew 6:26