Oh, Dear - Need Bird Nest Help STAT!

[OWC Jamie]

Looks like robin to me too.
And using the nest moved / disturbed is something a robin would do.
If you had ripped it apart it would have just built another one.
Likely in the same spot if it was stubborn enough.
I had one build a nest on a post ( despite me pushing the starts off several times) . Had to fix a window so a cat couldn't get at it ( post was right under a open window in a barn) and then I built a little roof for it, too.

I've had one insist on building a nest for the last three years in a cherry tree I have to spray ( covering the nest when I spray is a PITA ) and it won every year.


Is that trimmed bush being yanked out or is it supposed to grow back ?
That's a pretty hard pruning.

[graylocks]

billb wrote:
Looks like robin to me too.
And using the nest moved / disturbed is something a robin would do.
If you had ripped it apart it would have just built another one.
Likely in the same spot if it was stubborn enough.
.

She must be stubborn! i was reading this thread and was about to go out and check on the nest. But, that shrub is right outside my office window and i glanced out just in time to see Mom return to the nest and sit on the egg! i quietly took a pic but blinds are in the way. i'll try to get one later after i raise the blind. don't want to raise it now as it might spook her and i think that egg needs some warming. she wasn't on it when i glanced out a few times earlier this morning.

yes, it was a severe pruning. i'm so tired of how prolific this shrub Japanese Euonymus, as i've recently learned - that i wouldn't mind if it didn't grow back. however, one site says it can stand radical pruning. the only thing it apparently hurts is your neighbor's perception of your your.

[graylocks]

Hope and Spring spring eternal. i'm glad the Mom returned but was still feeling bad since there's only one egg. i was thinking she maybe dropped others elsewhere while i was manhandling her home. turns out most birds lay one egg a day. i do believe the speculation that it's a robin family is correct.

On The Nest
Until they've laid a full clutch, robins allow all the eggs to stay cool so the babies don't start to develop. That's pretty smart! It means all the babies hatch close to the same time. Mother robins may start incubating their eggs during the evening after the second egg is laid, or after all the eggs are laid. They sit on the eggs for 12 to 14 days. The female usually does all the incubating. Even in good weather, she rarely leaves her eggs for more than 5 to 10 minutes at a time.

mom looks like this:

[cbelt3]

Well done !

I had a similar issue... a large and old nest fell during a thunderstorm (with baby robins in it), and I was convinced by my then 5 year old daughter to 'save the baby birdies'. The nest was recovered, the scattered babies put into it with a few pieces of torn towel, the nest was carefully set into an old wicker basket, and the basket was then firmly screwed back into the tree.

Mom returned after the storm, and all the babies survived. That nest box was reused every year for two decades.

[Jimmypoo]

hard boil it! Roast the mother!

"The mother & child reunion...
it's only a motion away."

[graylocks]

MacDoxy wrote:
you might want to encircle it with something like chickenwire or whatever

given the urban wildlife i've seen in my yard, i'm more concerned with providing some sort of overhead protection. Blue Jays, hawks, and owls abound. i've watched a Blue Jay being attacked by a horde of birds as it clutched one of that flock; BJ won that one. a few summers ago in the middle of the night either a hawk or an owl tried to snatch a german shepherd puppy from my neighbor's back yard. the mom won that one. might have helped that i jumped out of bed and went over to the yard with a flashlight to see what the commotion was about. (neighbor's weren't home.) a week or so later i saw the claw wounds on the puppy.

[Black]

Cool thread, thanks.

[graylocks]

had to have happened in the last three hours:

[kap]

You're a gramma now ... congrats!

Wonderful thread indeed (tu)

[A-Polly]

What perfect Easter eggs!