Empty nests

A few weeks ago I mentioned in one of my posts about the bird nests being constructed on either side of our house. Well, it appears that all the baby birds have spread their wings and flown off as both nests have been empty since earlier this week. I didn't get pictures of the house finches -- their nest was squished between the air conditioner and the window frame in my sister's bedroom, so you could only really see them by standing on a stool next to the window and looking straight down; not the best photo set-up. I was, though, able to take several photos of the robin nest outside our dining room window, from the early stages of nest building to the almost-ready-to-fly babies. (I wish the lighting had been better, but the nest was shaded under the eaves, and I didn't want to use my flash and have it reflect off the window and/or scare the robins.)

June 23, 2013: Day one of nest building. Doesn't look like much, does it?

June 24, 2013: Day two. The nest is taking shape.

June 25, 2013: Day three, and the nest is complete. Wish you could build a house in three days?

July 5, 2013: We couldn't see into the nest, but we assume by this point that there were eggs in there. One day while the female robin (I think it was the female, anyway) was sitting on the nest, the male flew up and brought her some food. So maybe those cravings aren't unique to humans ...

July 22, 2013: New babies! They hatched sometime while I was at the Stampin' Up! convention -- my sister thought it might have been on July 17, the day I left -- and this was the first chance I had to get pictures. In the left picture you can see a little bald bird head, and in the right picture there is a little beak poking out. There were two babies in the nest.

July 28, 2013: Just a week later, and it's hard to believe how much the babies changed. When they stood up, like in these pictures, they looked huge. But they could still hunker down so far in the nest that we couldn't even see them. And it was funny to watch their "sibling rivalry" as they pushed and shoved each other in the nest. This was actually the last day we saw the robins. Sometime that night or early the next day, they were off on their own adventures. What an amazing nature lesson!

Thanks for stopping by!