Saturday, August 7, 2010

Baby Robins

These are the two remaining baby robins that were on our porch nest two days ago. (There were four. Number four disappeared overnight one night a week ago, number three was the biggest and jumped out a couple of days ago.)




I was awakened from an after-dinner nap on my couch this afternoon by a weird screeching sound from the porch. It seems both remaining birds decided to leave the nest this afternoon. One bird was gone, but one was being attacked by a stray cat on my porch. I scared the cat away, but the remaining bird just could not seem to fly. He kept trying to fly into my big living room window, but was smacking into the siding below the window. Eventually I got tired of seeing him brain himself on my house, coaxed him onto a paint-stirrer, and put him back in his nest.

His brother (or her sister, too young for me to tell) was sitting on my back porch, and migrated to my Jeep when I came outside.




A short while later, my wife informed me that the house-crashing robin was now sitting at my front door staring into the screen and chirping. *sigh* I went out to check him out and make sure the cat wasn't around. He waited until I was watching him and then chirped "Look at me! I can fly!" and then proceeded WHAM WHAM WHAM to repeatedly launch himself against the side of my porch. (I think the other fledgelings got all the brains.)

OK, I get it, you don't want to stay in the nest. I also think that you are cat food if you stay on the porch. Let's try moving you to the backyard where your brother was and see if you can perch in a bush or something high enough to stay safe.

Nope, halfway to the backyard the robin decided that it was going to sleep on the paint stirrer. (Just like my baby, it apparently likes to fall asleep to a nice rocking motion.) Grrrr. I put the robin - stick and all - on my Jeep, hoping he would flutter off to a bush or something. Nope. Not wanting to leave the sleeping moron where the cat could come back and munch on him, I decided that he should sleep somewhere safer.