Holy Birds' Nests, Batman!

Spring has come to WV and that means the tweeting of birdy things. A couple weeks ago, a family of robins built a nest in the tree outside our kitchen window. Ash and I watched them build it over the course of a couple of days. The following week, we could see the blue of a robin's egg just over the edge of the nest.

"I went out there and looked at the nest today," Ashley told me after work.

"You didn't touch the egg did you?!" I said, horrified.

"Yeah," Ashley said. "I picked it up and rolled it around in my hands for a while."

"Licked it a couple times, too?"

"Oh, sure," she said.

For the sarcasm impaired, no, she didn't touch it. In fact, she couldn't even see into the nest because it was too high in the tree.

"You better go get a picture of that," Ashley told me.

"Okay, but I'll have to wait for mama robin to fly off for a while."

"Just go out there and take the picture. She'll fly away."

"No. I don't want to traumatize the birds! They're our guests and I don't want them to think it was a bad idea to start a family in our tree."

A day or so later, though, I happened to look out the window and saw that Mama Robin was not in the nest. I grabbed my camera and ran outside. I couldn't see into the nest either, but I was able to hold my camera above it and take a few shots. I'd only snapped the first one when Mama Robin returned and began tweeting furiously at me. Since I'd already pissed her off, I went ahead and took two more before retreating. Turns out the nest didn't have an egg in it. There were four, all bright blue and beautiful.

I'm glad I took the pictures when I did, because on Thursday we made a new discovery. The eggs have now hatched and there are four baby robins. Naturally, Ash wanted me to go get a picture right away, but again I refused because the mom and daddy robins were guarding the nest. Then, this morning, I looked out the window and mama robin was gone again. I rushed right out, snapped three more pictures and rushed away before any angry tweeting or the pecking of my eyes could befall me. The chirpers were sleeping, and it's kind of hard to see the fourth robin in the back, but I got the picture clear and free.

We're naming them Robins Leach, Williams, Givens and the Boy Wonder.