Our New Tenants

The adult male and female both are active in protecting and feeding the fledged chicks until they learn to forage on their own. The adult Robin gives alarm calls and dive-bombs predators, including domestic cats, dogs and humans that come near the young birds.

-wikipedia


Every morning I go and work on my mother's blog at around 10 am. Recently, in the last month or so, this activity has made me an enemy of the new family of robins that have nested on the front porch lantern to the right of the front door.
At first, before the baby robins hatched, the mother robin just sat on the eggs all day and gave me the evil eye.
The baby birds are hatched and growing now, however, and the mama bird is no longer content to just glare at me as I walk into the house.
Now, she perches on a tree nearest the front porch and yells at me in that universal language of angry mothers that everyone understands, regardless of species.
I would like to explain to her that I'm just going about my daily routine, but I know she won't listen to reason. If I take too long getting through the front door, she will fly at my head. It is very alarming.
For the purposes of this blog, I decided to take the step ladder onto the porch and quickly photograph the baby robins.
This little guy is looking at me very critically. I would say that the mama bird hates me more than ever after having done this, but I don't think that's actually possible.

I also took a video so that you might hear the sound of a mama robin yelling at someone who gets too close to her babies' nest. They say that robins hang out together en masse once it gets dark out, and that they will work together to chase off predators. I am no predator, but the mama robin clearly isn't willing to take the chance. So, if I suddenly up and disappear in the next couple weeks, you'll know who is to blame.

I don't know what she says when she tweet-yells at me, but it is very hurtful!

Comments

Anonymous said…
Never upset a mama of any kind, they can be deadly :-) :-)

Have a great day!
Christer.
loved seeing this...i LOVE your front door, LOVE those beautiful trees and i ADORE those lanterns....

and the baby birdies are darling...

so cute

great post

kary and teddy
It is a treat to see the babies nesting! Great post!
Maybe if you sang to her?
or played the harmonica?
Next option, visit the haberdasher for a pork pie hat.
xx
julie
Anonymous said…
what a treat to see eye to eye with the robin family,, thats a rare pleasure,, thank you for sharing this,
Sharon Day said…
That mama bird must have gone to the same mama school I went to. You don't mess with my youngun!
Guillaume said…
Oh I love robins! We had a robin's nest in the family cedar trees when I was a child, the parents were very protective and could be quite agressive.
Freckles said…
Oh, they're so cute!

Sorry that the mummy bird doesn't like you. Perhaps you could bribe her and leave a piece of bread for her next time. Maybe she might come around to you.
brokenteepee said…
We have two nests here - one up by the barn and one on the outside light by the sliding glass door.

Oh, and beware the cat the tries to "investigate" the nest.
SharleneT said…
You could sing her the song about 'four-and-twenty- ROBINS - baked in a pie!' just to let her know you're watching her, too! Great pix.
A word of advice, young Blog Tech. Use the back door!
LaTrice said…
A mourning dove decided to make her nesting my hanging basket of wave petunias. That was a month ago. Needless to say, the petunia are no more, but mama is on her second set of eggs, and thankfully, she's not nearly as aggresive as your robin.
Anonymous said…
Wow! I would be scared to death to climb and get that close with the mother in the area. I get visions of Alfred Hitchcock movies just thinking about it. Sweet blog tech, if you disappear in the near future we will send a search party.