Life Goes On . . . or NOT

In an earlier post this month, we welcomed new neighbors – a robin couple that had moved into the Crepe Myrtle neighborhood alongside our back patio. At the time, it seemed an unlikely location because of all activity in this area, both human and otherwise.

Abandonment is what we found last week – the nest and the 4 blue eggs were still there – the same as a couple of weeks ago. There hadn’t been any robin activity on the back patio in over a week before we checked the nest. Before then,  adult robins were chirping on the patio daily as we watched  from the kitchen window.

Curious to find out WHY birds would abandon a nest after eggs have been laid, I did some online research. Birds can abandon a nest that’s been discovered by a predator or simply because of too much activity in the area. Robins only abandon their eggs when something happens that tells them that they will have a poor chance of success. If it feels threatened by other animas or humans it will leave, even if eggs have been laid. In most cases, the eggs will not have been fertilized and would not contain any baby birds.

Shortly after we found this abandoned next, Grenville found another one in this cedar tree on back patio. The nest held 3 newly-hatched baby robins. Since the mother robin was very vocally active about our finding the nest, we decided to check on them in a week or so.Unfortunately, this one was in the lower branches of the tree and easy prey for predators and it was was discovered. When we checked it a week later, it was empty as shown here.

In such a short time, the young robins could not have developed enough to leave on their own. The predators might have been other birds or feral cats in the area.

This week we spotted several robin couples active in the back yard; hopefully there is more nesting activity. And, we would be glad NOT to find the location of any nest(s).