Early

Last year I made this post where I commented on finding a bird's nest in my front yard. Well this year it turns out that the nest became occupied (or a new nest was made in the same place) by a family of robins. Unfortunately we were too late to catch seeing the eggs, but we were able to observe the robin mother as she was brooding until the eggs eventually hatched, the babies developed into fledglings, and then left the nest. When I read up about the nesting habits of robins online, it matched rather well with what I observed happening with the robin in our front yard. Since they decided to reside in the lilac bush right beside our window, we were able to spy on the nest frequently, probably to the chagrin of the birds as they often stared at us when they noticed our presence.

Initially, we mostly saw the robin mother sitting in the nest, so we suspected that she had eggs in the nest. She sat there for most of the day, always awake with eyes open. I admired her ability to do that without getting insanely bored. During this time I never really saw the robin father come to the nest. The mother is shown in the hidden nest here:

Soon after the eggs hatched to yield three babies, and the mother began to make occasional trips to find food. The babies were still really small and most of the time were covered by the tall sides of the nest. Only when the mother returned would they immediately pop up from the nest, straining their necks to get at the food. This is a shot of the baby birds shortly after they hatched.

Eventually the babies began developing some plumage. Their characteristic red bellies began to show too. At this point the mother was still brooding during the day and especially during bad rainy weather. However, the birds eventually grew larger, to the point where it was almost comical since the chicks were all barely wedged into the nest. By then I rarely saw the mother near the nest again, except at night. However both the mother and father showed up at various points in the day to feed the fledglings.

The mother sitting on the fledglings:

Fledglings when mother was absent:

After about 2-3 weeks fom hatching the babies will have developed enough to be able to start learning to fly. Eventually they will leave the nest out into the world, mildly assisted by the parents as they try get independent at flying around and finding food. This matched with what I saw on the day when the fledglings finally left the nest. It was then when I was able to actually get a good look at their feathers.

Fledgling perched beside nest, ready to leave:

Fledgling on the front porch as it was leaving:

I was a little saddened when the robins were gone, and hoped that they would be ok. The survival rate of robins in the wild is understandably low. I was glad that all three chicks survived long enough to be able to leave the nest, at the very least. I managed to get some shaky camera footage of one of the fledglings that was perched beside the nest on the day they left the nest. Two of the fledglings left the nest around noon, but this one in the video stuck around until 6pm. Not sure why it did that, but I hope the parents didn't forget about it.

Apparently robins may nest twice in a single year during the summer, but at two different nesting sites. I found the robins in our front yard in mid-July, so this was probably the second time in the summer, if it had nested before. I'm glad I was able to observe something like this so closely, and it reminds me of the duck family that also lived in our front yard a few years ago. I guess there is just something about the front yard that birds really like? The website I read states that robins mainly determine their nesting site by judging the ability of the spot to support the nest from below, which is why they often nest at the base of places where branches fork out. It also explains why the robin I saw last year at Wonderland would nest immediately below the tracks of The Bat. There sure is a lot of structual integrity there, but I would still think sitting under a roller coaster all day would be detrimental to the robin...

Most info I read about was from this site: http://www.learner.org/jnorth/robin/

Early to bed, early to rise
The future is for those who get up early
He who arrives first, stays better
Morning time has gold in its mouth
He who sleeps doesn't catch any fish
The early bird catcheth the worm