We return from Seoul to find 4 new bird’s nests on a ledge outside our living room window. Two have birds sitting in them. One bird flew away and has not returned, leaving quite a well-formed nest.
The other bird has a less impressive nest, but returned after a while, making me think that there might be eggs.
A closer inspection after she again flew off shows two eggs.
April 22, 2011
This morning the bird would fly off any time she saw us. After a while, she tolerated my working in the kitchen, but not entering the living room. Tonight I was able to get a picture of her from the living room, only about 8 feet or so from her:
Another picture after she flew away shows a third egg.
April 23
Our bird seems to have rearranged the eggs a little overnight.
April 24
This morning the robin stayed in her nest, shaking her tail for a length of time. We thought she might be laying another egg. A bit later when she flew to the strawberry patch (looking for worms?) I took another peek. Now there are four eggs! While I was taking the picture, she watched me intently and squawked loudly. As soon as I left, she returned to the nest. She is now much more comfortable with my watching, as long as I don’t go near the nest.
The robin stayed on the nest nearly all day yesterday, perhaps because it was cold and rainy. She seems to rearrange the eggs on a regular basis. (Note the position of the eggs in the two pictures below, one taken yesterday afternoon, and the other taken this morning.) I wish she had moved to the adjacent well-built nest. I am afraid the eggs could easily roll out of this ring of straw. (If you look closely at the above picture and the one below, you can see that the eggs are sitting directly on the grey shelf – no padding at all under them.)
April 28
I hope the eggs survived the 35 degree weather and strong wind we had yesterday and last night. At one point it looked as if nest, bird and all were going to blow away.
Still no new eggs. Since the last egg was laid April 24 and eggs are usually laid at 48 hour intervals, it is probably safe to assume that we are now in the hatching stage. That process takes 12-14 days meaning the first eggs could hatch as early as the 6th or 7th of April.