a robin family

It all started in mid March. There is this robin keep flying into the clerestory windows of my living room. I was very puzzled with its strange behavior.
It would keep flying towards the window may be a hundred times a day as if trying to hung its own reflection. I thought it must have lost its mate to a predator (like house cat) and the urge to breed makes it lunging at its reflection. This went on every morning and late afternoon. I thought the poor thing would eventually kill itself. With each collision with the window it left behind a bit of saliva on the glass. I wanted to do something to discourage it.

 i tried putting up newspaper

 i tried the colorful mardi gras umbrella

 i tried the mardi gras stuffed tiger

None of the things I put up on the windows help. It even move onto to the clerestory window of my bedroom. After over a week another robin emerged. They begun to try to build a nest onto the metal light fixture of my modern shed in my garden. The problem is the straw they gather to put onto the flat top of the metal light fixture just slipped right off and fall onto the ground. Still they keep on doing it. Silly birds.

I decided to help. I came up with the idea to provide a wood platform for them to build the nest on.

Apr 2; the piece of plywood serves as a stable platform; i added a loop of steel wire to help secure the nest; the plywood is then secured to the light fixture with 2 cable ties

 before long on the same day the nest was taking shape - these plant matters were brought here by the robins

So what was the reason for the strange behavior of the robin kept throwing herself (I assume) to the plate glass? Seeing how careful the robins eventually chose the location for the nest, I think she saw the openness (behind the clerestory windows) of my post and beam house as a safe place to build a nest. My house interior looks like a big sheltered outside space to a bird looking from without.

there are two eggs on Apr 25

May 5 - there were 3 eggs

May 8 - the first chick hatched - there are 3 eggs the mother robin laid

 May 9 - the mother robin incubating the two eggs with one chick already hatched

May 9 - mother robin at the nest

May 11, all the chicks has hatched; you can see the one at the top of the photograph is significantly larger so it stands to reason it is the first born

I witness crows try to raid the nest and the robins fought back by dive bombing the crow; I also pitched in to help chase the crows away.

May 11 - mother robin feeding the chicks

May 12 - an adult feeding the chicks; it took me with a lot of observations to recognize which is the female and male; most of the time is the mother robin doing the hunting and feeding but occasionally the male did share the duty; the male played a very important role in taking up an protective surveillance post for the look out for predators

it is always a joy to watch the Anna's hummingbirds and their aerial ballet

Where I live there are a lot of hummingbirds. The most often sighted are the Anna's but occasionally, to my delight I see the other migrating varieties. Their aerial ballet is something to behold, from aerial refueling at the nectar feeders and flowers, to insect hunting high up on the trees, to the territorial defending dog fights, and to chasing off birds many times their miniature size.  The most impressive is male Anna's courting ritual. I have witnessed the dare devil dive of the male that plunges towards the ground at breakneck pace and then pull up the last minute before impact. The high-G last minute pull up create the Anna's male's signature chirp when the tail feathers vibrate like reed to impress the female.


May 17 - the chicks were growing very fast with the mother busy all day long feeding them earthworms; you can see they grew a lot of fine furs (down-like feathers)

this is the male robin on the lookout for predators - some time the male and female will each take up a post on the opposite end of my house high up on the power cable and TV antenna

May 19 - seeing the chicks are close to taking the first flight, I put down some scrap plastic sheet as breakfall should one falls off the nest

 May 21 - the chicks were so big now they are really crowding the nest

May 21 - these are the last few photos I captured; the next day the chicks one by one begun their maiden flight

In the ensuring weeks I occasionally spotted the young bird as well as the parents. It is however no way for me to determine how may young bird survived.

Once the chicks took their first flight they leave the nest for good. Bye bye birdies.

saw this irresistibly cute photo of a little urban owl on The Guardian - love owls

Update Jun 18: The robin chicks left the nest nearly a week ago. I have spotted the fresh face young bird in many occasions now. Like a Persian prince out of the One Thousand and One Arabian Nights enjoying its youthful life, it is handsome, trimmed, and has intensely deep colors. I also saw the parents hanging around in my and my neighbours' yards. Since the siblings don't hang around together I cannot tell how many survive so far. May be when they grow bigger and develop the distinct male and female appearance I can at least discern them by gender.