Baby birds gone overnight

[chopper]

A pair of finches return to my rose trellis every year to build a nest in the most precarious place possible. Clearly they are not engineers.

I took some twine and bolstered up the nest this year before they returned. They put three eggs in there as usual and yesterday it was all open mouths looking up at me.

Today all gone. No baby birds on the ground. Hard to know what happened. No way a cat could get up there.

Bummer.

[Speedy]

It’s just nature. Another hungry animal had lunch.

[d4]

Squirrels and Blue Jays eat bird eggs and baby hatchlings. When Robins come to my backyard to nest, I try to look out for them.

[mikebw]

Nature can seem cruel.

I've watched a big jerk-faced snake crawl up into a rose bush and eat all the eggs while the parent bird tried their best to fight it off.

[pdq]

Yeah, we had another nest of cardinals in the grapevine that arches over our garage door. Bad idea, since opening and closing the door usually scares the Mom off the nest.

Yesterday, we found the nest deserted and the remnants of a couple of broken eggs on the concrete below. We originally though we might have tipped the nest when backing out the car at some point, but then realized something had taken all the leaves (that were hiding the nest) off of the vine, just around the nest, for maybe 18" total. And the leaves were scattered on the ground.

Not sure who the perp was. No cats that we know of around. Plenty of squirrels, but we're thinking maybe a raccoon. Too high for a deer (and I doubt a deer would do that). Hopefully too high for a bear (as there's been one hanging around a suburb a couple miles away).

The wife was sad. I reminded her that nature can be cruel.

[chopper]

I'm afraid that the red squirrels in my tree are going to die, then.

[Speedy]

We have robins that have been nesting for years on top of our porch light. They are nicely sheltered from storms, etc but not from other birds. We watched as a blackbird drove off the robins and feasted on their three eggs. The robins have never had a successful brood.

I still feel bad for wiping out a number of hatchlings while mowing my back yard after a return from a long trip a number of years ago. The grass was a foot high and the birds had nested in the tall grass. As I mowed one of the birds began to dive at my head. I was too dense to pay enough attention to that behavior to understand what was going on. I only figured it out after making a second pass (first pass cut high, second pass to desired length) and seeing the remains of the bloodied chicks in the grass.

[mrbigstuff]

chopper wrote:
I'm afraid that the red squirrels in my tree are going to die, then.

there may be various animals who have a number on your head, too!

[mrbigstuff]

I had a baby robin fall out of a small tree here. was on the ground looking helpless with its mouth open. my son and I dug some worms up and the baby really gulped them down! wow, it was hungry. not too many, because I don't know how much they are supposed to eat, but the mom eventually came back. (I found out when I heard some frantic cackling as I neared the baby.) After some weeks, baby and mom kept returning to the yard and hopping around, looking at the window. Robins are actually very interesting birds! seem curious and loners.

[btfc]

I was driving down a side road a few years ago and stopped for a big older golden retriever who was in the road. He wouldn’t leave the roadway, so I got out to investigate.

He was shepherding a fledgling robin around; I could hear the parents in some bushes nearby, so I moved the young bird out of the road close to them.