Baby Robins

While we were in Chicago, a pair of robins built five nests under the roof of our porch.  They were in various stages of completion, and seemed to finish only one - right above our table.  We thought maybe they would decide to build a nest somewhere else, since we are often out on our porch.  Evelyn got scared of the birds, especially if we were sitting at the table and a bird would fly in or out of the nest.  We wondered if we should remove the nest so she wasn't terrified anymore.  I decided we should take a look in the nest before we did that, and was surprised to see five beautiful blue eggs.  Obviously we were't going to move the nest. That was on May 8th.

On May 11th I peaked in the nest again.  This time I saw that three of the eggs had hatched.  The little babies were so cute, all pink with random long hair-like feathers.  The mother would feed the babies and then sit on the babies.  She took out the empty shells.  All five eggs hatched.

As they grew bigger, we could see their little beaks poking out of the top of the nest.  The parents came frequently to feed the babies.  We were careful not to open the back door or come up on the porch while the babies were being fed.  We would put chairs on the side porch and sit and wait for the parents to come feed their babies.  They would often wait in the oak tree, the flowering tree by the driveway or the raised beds before flying to the nest.  We had fun watching.  Evelyn wasn't scared from a distance and would point and say "bird."  One of the little boys that my neighbor watches also loved to see the "baby robins".

My neighbor and I were watching one of the parents feed the babies when we saw something rather odd.  After the parent fed the babies, it stood there for a moment before picking up a white blob and eating it.  We were both curious, so I looked it up.  It turns out that what we saw was the parent eating a fecal sac.  It makes sense, you need to get rid of the waste, otherwise the nest would be full of it.  When the babies are young, they don't digest their food very well, so their fecal matter is very nutritious.  The parents eat it for energy so they can focus on finding food for their young.  As the babies get older and can digest their food better, the parents take the sack away and drop it.

One morning when, Alistair and I come downstairs to get ready for school, I saw Chivers, the Maine coon cat from across the street, halfway up one of the porch posts and the parent robins  making a loud racket.  I chased Chivers away.  That cat is quite the climber and a very good hunter.  I've seen him with a snake in his mouth.  I was beginning to feel very protective of these birds.

This past Sunday, a terrible thing happened.  I was making breakfast and decided to take our seedling trays outside to make more room on the counter.  I checked the nest for feeding as usual, and then walked outside.  As I was setting down the tray, I felt something underfoot.  Used to stepping on toys, I stopped applying weight to that foot and then stepped back.  To my absolute horror, I realized I had stepped on a baby bird.  I screamed and ran back inside.  I was a mess.  Colin picked up the little bird and put him in a small tray and put him next to the nest, and then called VINS.  Because we live in New Hampshire, they told us to call Catherine at the Saint Francis Bird Hospital.  She said that if the bird is not seriously hurt, it might just be suffering from hypothermia.  So we brought the bird inside and made a little incubator with a hot water bottle, towel and box.  He seemed to perk up a little bit when we first brought him in, but before the hour was up, the little bird had passed away.  I was more upset than the kids.

We had a little funeral for the bird.  Alistair wanted to make a cross, so he went into the woods to find some sticks.  The sticks he picked out were huge - the cross would have been three feet high.  He found some smaller sticks, which I made into a cross.  Alistair also wrote an adorable little poem.  We buried the little bird at the edge of the woods.  Our neighbor Judith brought over two book children's bereavement books.  One was called The Fall of Freddie the Leaf: A Story of Life for All Ages.

Colin did a bit of research to try and find out what might have happened.  The bird might have been pushed out by his siblings (the nest was a bit crowded) or maybe he was sickly and kicked out.  We don't know how long he was outside.  He might have been hurt of already suffering from hypothermia, which is why he didn't move out my way.  It made me feel a bit better, but I still feel that I killed the poor bird.

Watching the birds after that wasn't the same.

This morning when we went outside, we noticed that the nest appeared to be empty.  Where were all the birds.  We didn't see any in the yard.  I stood up on the chair, and used my iPhone to video the nest and the eave.  Only then did I see a little bird standing behind the nest.  But just one. I also noticed a little tuft of Chiver fun halfway up the post nearest the nest.  Did Chivers get to the birds?  I truly hope not.

We watched the little bird flap around a bit under the roof, and then he flew down to the porch, right outside the back door.  What a magical thing to witness.  He hung out on the back porch for a couple of hours.  He stood on the chair and then on the railing, just taking it all in.  The parents would come and feed him.  Eventually he made his was down to the flower beds in the front of the porch and then the grass and then the soccer net and then with his parents in our neighbor's compost pile.  And then that was it.  Colin saw at least one baby bird later this afternoon, and then that was it.  We'll miss them.