"The sun is sinking slowly in the western sky"...a few words from one of my favorite songs sung by John Denver. As this gorgeous day draws to a close, so does the month of April. The scenery in our backyard has changed dramatically over the past few weeks. Snowbirds have finally left it for a more northern destination. Robins are back. As I sit here writing, robins twitter about outside my open window singing their old familiar evening songs. Once again I awaken in the early dawn to hear their repertoire as they serenade their mates. Robins have become like faithful old friends. Every spring we welcome their return. They seem to love our backyard, scratching in our gardens and bathing in our little pond. Each year they build nests in the small red maple and tall pines. A few years ago we had an unfortunate experience that caused me to fear our relationship with them might be altered forever. We found plans on-line on how to build a box for robins to nest in. We had other bird boxes and sparrows in particular made use of them year after year. So we decided to try one for a robin. To our amazement, shortly after building one and fastening it fairly high up onto the trunk of our silver maple tree, a robin began building a nest in it. Excitedly, we watched as the female sat patiently on her eggs through every imaginable kind of weather. Then the day came when the eggs hatched. Again, we watched as mom and dad devotedly cared for their young. They grew quickly and became bolder and bolder, stepping closer and closer to the edge of the box and gazing out into the brand new world awaiting them. That's when we got the idea of taking pictures of them. Someone we knew had a great camera with a zoom. After numerous snaps the temptation grew to get even closer. Climbing a ladder to snap a really close-up shot seemed innocent enough. None of us could have even imagined the havoc that step would cause. When the photographer reached the top the baby birds suddenly decided it was time to get serious about using those little wings they'd been flexing and practicing with. One of them leaped from the box and went gliding down onto the lawn. At the same time mom and dad robin went into a rage. Our thoughts were to capture the baby bird and return it to the nest. So despite the protests of the parents that is what we attempted to do. However, as the person carrying the fledgling reached to place it into the nest another one put its wings into action and glided out and down onto the lawn. Upon release, the first one had no interest in staying put either and again glided back down. Now there were two on the ground. Mom and dad were in a panic, screaming and darting about frantically. We were all just totally heartsick for causing these birds we love such distress. It had seemed like such an innocent thing to do. No one could have imagined this would happen. Fortunately, the fledglings were ready to use their tiny wings and could get themselves up off of the ground and into some of the lower branches of our shrubs and bushes. From there they hopped higher and higher. The upper portion of the shrubs weren't very far from the limbs of our tall pine trees. For the next several days we watched as the parents continued to guard them and feed them. So for that family of robins all ended well. However, for us it did not. That incident happened several years ago. Never since has a family of robins built in our boxes. I don't know just how birds communicate experiences, etc. to each other. It does seem like one so unpleasant as that was has been passed on from robin to robin ever since though. As they still continue to return to our backyard each Spring and busy themselves building nests in the same old familiar places they take special care to always avoid our boxes - like they've never forgotten. What an unfortunate learning experience it was. I've included a photo of the nesting box attached to one of our pine trees that a family of sparrows have been using successfully for the past ten years. We kept none of the robins.
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