Four weeks plus a day after two juvenile robins launched from the nest above our porch — we think successfully — a singleton launched from the same nest, rather less successfully we fear.
To our uneducated eyes, and just going by the timeline the last time, it looks like buddy jumped a day or two early and then had trouble getting up and flying. But we don’t know the outcome.
Next time, we’ll make sure to include a requirement for a final report in our tenants’ agreement . . . Here’s what we did see.
Please please please can I jump?
“No! And that’s final.”
Where the heck is he?
“He jumped. Early. He gets that from your side.”
Where’s the food? I thought there’d be more food.
Mom? Dad? Can anyone hear me?
Where is that dagnabbed kid?
Getting too old for this . . .
Great captions for the nature story. Nice pics too!
Thanks, Jim.
Isabel
Great pictures and very child and parent questions!
Wonderful.
Tom
Tom – Many thanks. It’s wonderful to watch, but hard when it doesn’t seem to go well.
With our menagerie, it’s the disappearing kittens that bring worry. On the other hand, the fewer successfully reared kittens, the more threatened the bird population. Once one becomes involved with even domesticated animals the problems multiply. You still get to celebrated the successes so nicely documented.
Laurna – Cats are a hazard, for sure – they’re excellent hunters – but I get that it’s hard to lose kittens. If only nature could be a vegetarian paradise, eh? Intellectually, I understand the principle of survival fitness, but it’s hard not to get emotionally invested in a certain outcome.
When kittens or cats or small dogs go missing in California, it’s “The coyotes got ’em.” And they were surprisingly accepting of the fact. One woman told me, living on the mountain side of the beautiful Highway One coast road, “It was a cougar what got my little Popsy dog. He got old and slow. But we ARE in the cougar’s territory so …. “
Barbara – Yikes. Well, acceptance is better than calling for the extermination of all the predator critters, after moving into their territory. But it is tough on old Popsy.