The Busy and Beautiful Nest

The day after we arrived home from our trip to North Dakota last month, a pair of robins began building a sturdy and strong nest in the most advantageous of all places:  the vine growing outside my bedroom window.  We were all so excited, and did our very best to tiptoe in and out of the room in order to not disturb the robins.  We did not want them to abandon the nest.  

It was the greatest location for up close bird watching ever.  I was rather indifferent to birds before, but after seeing them up close and personal these past few weeks, I have come to find them quite fascinating.

After the nest was complete, one egg appeared.  Truly, it was the most beautiful shade of blue ever.  Each day for four days in a row another egg appeared, and when the fourth egg nestled softly, the parents began to guard the nest very carefully.  I was able to take pictures of the eggs right after the last had been laid, by dangling out the upper part of the window, but after that, there was absolutely no opening of any windows!  Those parent birds were fierce!  

After two weeks, the eggs began to hatch!  Really, the newborns were fantastically ugly and adorable at the same time.  They were so weak and helpless.  It took so much work for them to hold their beaks up for food for even just a second.  You could see blood pulsing through the veins and vessels of their translucent skin, and the effort of breathing took up all their energy.  They were amazing.

My favorite part was the bulge in their eyes.  

Here they are a few days later, their eyes a little less bulging, their necks a bit stronger, and their beaks open longer.  

The busy parents brought them food every ten minutes, all day long.  It was an astounding amount of food for such little creatures, and they grew at a remarkable rate.  

Their feathers began to sprout, which made them uglier still, and yet still so interesting and endearing.  Soon their eyes developed enough to open.

Look at this amazing stretching.  The highest stretcher gets the most food.  It makes sense, but doesn’t seem very fair.  I have a big heart for the weakest little guy.  

They’ve changed even more still in the last few days since these final images were taken.  Getting to watch them up close over an extended period of time has been such a gift.