Birdwatchers

At the closing on our new house last May, the previous owners told us about a few of the springtime happenings around the house we'd just missed.  The azaleas blooming in the front yard and the robin babies underneath the back deck were the two things I knew I'd be excited about this year.

The azaleas bloomed splendidly - basically the first color other than green in the neighborhood.

But their color couldn't compare to our excitement when we saw a bird nest on the support beam under our deck.  We'd peek at it through the slats in the deck every couple of days.  The mama robin sat there ever vigilant so we never were able to see the eggs.

This past weekend Mason came running to tell us there were babies in the nest so we all took turns looking through the deck slats, trying to count the babies.  There were three itty bitty babies in the nest!  From then on every time we went outside we took another look.  Just two days after spying the babies, Mya exclaimed, "The babies are gone!"  Sure enough, babies and mama were gone.

Now I'm not an avian biology expert, but I'm fairly certain those babies wouldn't have been able to fly yet.  I scoped out the ground below the nest and found no trace of the robin family.  Obviously something had climbed up the support beam and gotten to those babies, but of course I didn't have the heart to tell the kids.  Thankfully, Mya came up with a good reason they must be gone - surely the mama and babies went to visit their grandma.  I'd like to believe her ending too.