New mama in this nest

The mama robin in the new nest has a beak like the baby in

this picture. This picture was made the day this baby fledged

from the same nesting site last year.

After mild overnight temperatures and a high in the mid 70s today, it seems like spring has finally arrived. To be sure, mama robins spending cool nights in nests can appreciate these warming temperatures.

This morning, I brought out my binoculars for a few looks at the nest from a bedroom window. For the first few looks, I only saw an empty nest, except for the one egg that was laid yesterday. Finally, I caught the mama in the nest. She was turned around and looking out of the nest. Sometimes, the mamas do turn around in the nest to face outward, but other times they sit on the nest in the same position they entered, with their tail feathers extending over the entrance to the nest.

With the mama looking out of the nest this morning, I got a good look at her. This was not the same mama that built a nest here last year. But there was something familiar about her. I noticed right away that she had the same beak as one of the babies that fledged from this nest last year.

That baby had a distinct beak that looked somewhat deformed. It seemed to give the baby bird a perpetual scowl. It was a broad and crooked beak that I didn't see on any of the other fledglings in the the three robins' nest I observed last year.

Seeing the mama with this beak made me wonder if she might have been one of the babies from this nest last year. The baby with this particular beak seemed to be the bossy one in the nest, so I named it Bossy. It was also the largest of the four babies and the first to fledge. It was concerning to me that this baby fledged on the 11th day, presumably three days early. But it stayed on the ground near the nest until the other babies fledged, and I watched the parents care for it, along with those still in the nest.

Tomorrow, I am going to try and get a picture of the mother on the nest and compare it to the baby from last year. That's also something I plan to research: Do robins return as adults to the site of the nests from which they fledged to build their own nests?

I checked the nest late this afternoon and early evening to see if a second egg had been laid today. There was none.  Usually, an egg is laid every day until there are
3-5 eggs in the nest. Yesterday's egg was laid late in the day, so I thought that might be the pattern for this nest. It will be interesting to see how the egg-laying continues, especially since all the eggs usually hatch within 24 hours

~~~B~~~