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Photo by Westwood Minute/Darlene Wong Cancell. Two baby robins, likely of many more in Westwood, have recently hatched.
It seems like only a couple of weeks ago that my family discovered an empty nest in the branches of our Rose of Sharon tree. We thought that we had missed the hatchlings or that the nest had been abandoned.
What a surprise, then, when about a week ago, we discovered two hatchlings and one, unhatched, blue egg. Today, I took photos of what the baby birds look like now.
Photo by Westwood Minute/Darlene Wong Cancell. Two baby robins, possibly a little more than a week old, are a jumble of beaks and downy feathers in their nest. Beneath the jumble, at the bottom of this photo, there may be a third baby.Conveniently, the trusting robin parents had built the nest at approximately my eye level. However, getting a photo at the right angle through the tree branches and trying not to cause a disturbance is tricky. The photos I took show a jumble of beaks and downy feathers.
Photo by Westwood Minute/Darlene Wong Cancell. A recently hatched baby robin opens its mouth wide.I'm no expert, but by comparing these babies to a series of photos showing robin development, I would guess they are about 8-10 days old.
Photo by Westwood Minute/Darlene Wong Cancell. The baby robins are securely nested in the arms of a Rose of Sharon tree.On Friday evening, July 21, 2023, under driving rain and thunder, I witnessed one of the dedicated robin parents sitting on the nest, fully covering the babies during the storm. Normally in good, daytime weather, I notice the parents quickly fly away when anyone approaches. On this night, during the storm, the nesting parent was steadfast, remaining settled in place, protecting its babies.
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