Last spring a pair of robins made a nest beside our front door. They hatched 3 chicks which we got to watch as they hatched from their eggs, grew bigger and after about 3 weeks flew from the nest to never return to it. The male robin returned about 6 weeks ago. He began to guard the nest, chasing any other birds away from the front of the house. He would see his reflection in our office window and begin to fight himself! He would keep pecking at the window and sometimes he would fly feet first into it! I thought his own reflection was another robin near the nest. He did the same thing with the mirror on my Chey Avalanche. I had to begin to park it in the street to keep him away from it.

About a week and a half ago the female showed up. She spent the first week flying around and feeding on the ground with the male. She than moved into the nest. Once she was settled in the nest we did not see the male robin anymore. The female laid 4 eggs in the nest and is now spending most of her time sitting on them as you can see in the photos.

Female robin sitting on the eggs in her nest

4 eggs in the robins nest by our front door.

Click below to see a video of the 3 fledglings as they left the same nest last year.

Fly way little birds

Just one inch from our front door, Mr. & Mrs. Robin built their nest! Now mind you, those

Robin sitting on her eggs.

pieces of drift wood collected over the years have hung peacefully by my door for five years and no other local birds have bothered them.  What’s up with that?  Being the genius nature lover that I am, I had to give the robins credit.  They choose a place that faced the warm morning sun to start out the day, and, protected from the excess afternoon heat.  The nest is also under the eave keeping it nice and dry.  Mr. & Mrs. Robin were not taking any chances of another wet spring in the Pacific Northwest!  We don’t  use the front door too often so they took a chance it would all work out.

Soon there were three eggs!  But, oh, the courtship and protection stage!  Mr. Robin was attacking anything within his rightful territory, including our two cars, and our neighbor’s two cars on both sides of us!   Mr. Robin would see himself in the reflection of the glass windows, mirrors and even our office window.  That imposter robin he saw in the reflection had to be chased away!  So Mr. Robin would flap against the car windows and mirrors and our office window relentlessly.  Robins have been known to seriously injure themselves with this behavior, even to the point of their own death.

We choose to park our cars on the street to give Mr. Robin some peace of mind…..and to keep the bird poop off!  One neighbor would just wash his car every morning before going to work!

My looming dread was that Mrs. Robin would be scared off so often that she would fail to keep the eggs incubated sufficiently enough to hatch.  We would turn off our head lights when we got close to our house so she would not be disturbed.  Then slink around the bushes to the side of the house and go in our back door.  Pretty funny behavior on our part!

Chicks Hatching.

Robin in our driveway with worm to feed its chicks.

Chick looking to be feed.