Flew the Nest...

For the last few years we've had robins build a nest on our porch. It's never gone well, until this year. woohoo! Twice we've tried to save the previous babies-twice they've died on us causing heartache for the kids. Last year I was mad at them & told them not to come back here until they figured out how to be good parents. LOL

Well they must have taken me seriously because they finally raised a batch of babies from start to finish. They did lose one of them, though. It was half grown & got pushed out of the nest. Jonah found it dead on the ground. Here's a picture of the other 4 babies in the nest(the day before they flew away):

I was actually able to get a picture of one of the parents! I can't believe they didn't abandon this nest-there is so much noise & commotion on our porch & in the yard w/ the kids, the dogs & the ducklings. I tried to keep it down to a dull roar, but there's only so much I can do. :)

Yesterday all the birds learned to fly & left the nest. We witnessed the leaving of 3 of them-they each got out of the nest, stood on the beam for awhile, jumped/flew to another beam, flew/fell to the porch with their parents nearby, then they did a low halting flight across the lawn over to the woods. Today we've seen them a bit in the side yard. Here is a pic of the last robin before it took off. It stayed for hours longer than the others.

Here it is finally brave enough to jump out of the nest:

I didn't realize they were all so big-I can't imagine how they all fit in that little nest-no wonder one of them got pushed out. I hope next year the parents build a bigger nest. :) Susanna was sad when they all left, but she's been busy with her little puddle ducks. :)