I had a robin's nest outside my front door a few years ago. I did not get my XMAS wreath down in time and they built it right on top the old dried up wreath.
My husband was in the process of dismantling our old front deck and putting up a new one. We were afraid all the activity would disturb them but the robins never lost a beat. They sat motionless while they were incubating the eggs. I forget now how long it took for the baby robins to hatch.
Even once the babies were hatched, the parents never lost a beat. My husband started work on the east end and worked towards the west end where the nest was. Even then, the parents never got too agitated until my husband was almost under the nest. Then he took evenly timed breaks either every so many minutes or when he saw them lurking with bugs and worms that they had found to feed their babies.
The baby robins took exactly 14 days to fly...just like my birding book said. It was really neat watching them fly on that last day. One flew quite early in the morning, two around noon, and the last one seemed to have cold feet and never flew until 7 pm. The mother squawked and scolded and finally the last one flew.
There was not one mess either for the whole time. I was quite shocked at how the parents handled the poop. Once they had fed a baby, that baby in turn lifted its bum and pooped into the parents’ mouth!!!
I will post some pics of the baby robins when I have more time.
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