Well, here's an amazing story of true dedication and compassion for you.
We were over at our neighbors for a pleasant Sunday evening visit on their front porch, when the kids found a robin's nest nestled up in the corner of the neighbors horse trailer. They were excited to find two baby birds and two unhatched eggs inside! They were taking turns looking in and chattering about it, when neighbor daddy told the kids to get that nest outta there. He didn't want kids or birds messing around the trailer. (He is a big horse dude, hunter guy, who shoots birds for practice and fun). So his kids took it down, not sure what to do with it. We watched the mother bird come back all confused, swooping down to find her nest, but it wasn't there. Kind of sad, if you think birds are cute. Later in the evening the kids decided to put the nest back when their dad wasn't looking since they didn't know what to do with it.
Come morning, Lindsey comes in the house saying the Brown's gave her the baby birds. Sounds like Daddy Brown didn't like the fact the nest was back in the trailer, and Mama Brown didn't want to deal with baby birds. So Lindsey put the nest in a bucket, and the kids set up the heat lamp and set to work finding worms. After awhile I told Lindsey there was just no way she would be able to keep the birds alive. We fed them some baby oatmeal with a medicine dropper, and they actually liked it, but I knew they would eventually just die a sad and slow death. So I told them we would need to probably just throw them into the canal for a quick painless way out of the world.
But then I had an idea....Mrs. Robin! Good, faithful, devoted Mrs. Robin. Devoutly warming her one blue egg day in and day out like Horton the elephant. For weeks and weeks she has sat and sat and sat....hey wait a minute! The info I just read says baby birds hatch within 2 weeks!... So the transplant plan was "hatched"! hee hee.
I knew that Mrs. Robin's dear egg had to be a dud. There was still one unhatched egg in the kidnapped nest along with 3 babies(one had hatched during the night). So we scared Mrs. Robin off her nest on our wreath, and slowly, ever so daintily stole her egg. I gave it a crack and sure enough, weeks of sitting on a runny rotten yolk! Poor Mrs. Robin. All her time,her hopes, expectations, dashed in a single moment. So we proceeded with the plan. We gingerly picked up the orphan egg, which was beginning to crack, put it in Mrs. Robins nest, and ran inside to wait for her return. Would she reject the foreign egg? Would she cluck and sqwak and push it out? Upon her return we were overjoyed to see her sit on her nest without even a wiff of hesitation. Seeing that she didn't reject the egg, we decided to try an even greater feat. We scared Mama bird off her nest one more time, and put the three helpless babies in a new home. This was risky. Success was highly unlikely. Birds shirk at human smell, unfamiliar smell, abandon nests, kick eggs out of nests, all sorts of things. I waited and watched.
A few minutes later, I will never forget!!! As I peeked around the corner to watch through the window, Mrs and Mr. Robin both sat perched on the nest, just staring. The sat there together looking down at the nest, their heads cocked, their eyes just blinking. It was SO cute! It was like they were two amazed parents just staring in unbelief at what they saw. They sat there for a couple minutes, as if in a daze....they had waited for twice the amount of time they should have for their one egg to hatch, and now look!! 4 babies! Withing a few minutes the decision was made. The mother promptly sat on the nest, adjusting her self all proper like, and the proud papa flew off to find something for them to eat. Sure enough, a couple minutes later, he brought back his catch, put it in the mothers mouth, and then she proceeded to feed the babies. They went on and on like that the entire afternoon, and this morning when I peeked in the nest, the babies were alive and well!!! So, there is an amazing story!!!!
3 naked helpless babies. What to do?
The proud new parents...we've got a great observation window from inside. We can watch all day long at this feeding process. Those robins are dedicated, and work hard together!!
