A Nest Update, A Survival Tale

If you have been following my robin’s nest story, this is an update that I will tell you right now is not all good news, in fact there is very little good news.  I just thought that I would put that out there first so that you can click away if you would like.

Here are the five healthy hatches on Thursday morning:

ISO 800 4mm 0ev f/2.7 1/200

On Friday morning a few of the birds had their eyes open:

ISO 800 4mm 0ev f/2.7 1/250

It was Saturday when we first noticed the falcon, or Cooper’s Hawk?  I say falcon, but the truth is we are still debating which type of bird this is that is preying on the robins. We were working in the yard and the birds around started going nuts.  We looked around and saw the falcon on the corner of our roof.  The robins and a few blackbirds chased it off and everything calmed down.

This afternoon we were again outside when we again heard the birds and saw the falcon.  My oldest child got this video of the falcon attacking the robin nest:

Here is the nest moments later:

ISO 800 4mm 0ev f/2.7 1/640

This robin could not have been any flatter or more still.  It was our guess that the falcon took one baby at this time.  It is not clear what happened to the three unaccounted for birds.  Sometime between Friday morning and Sunday afternoon they went missing.

Then the adult robins came back:

ISO 320 50mm 0ev f/5.6 1/200

Half an hour later here is the nest again:

ISO 800 4mm 0ev f/8 1/200

Empty.  I had my Canon 50D set up during the time that the last bird went missing.  My pictures do not shed any light on what happened to the baby. We also had a window open and didn’t hear anything.  Did the adults relocate the last baby?  At this point, that is what we suspect, so we go looking.  We notice an adult bird flying low into our hedgerow and we find the surviving baby.  When the adult leaves, I get a photo in the hedgerow:

ISO 800 50mm 0ev f/5.6 1/50 flash used

I left the hedgerow and so did the robin, so I got this picture also:

ISO 640 50mm 0ev f/5.6 1/200

I told the robin to get back into the hedgerow, but more convincing was the fact that the adult robins came back and told the baby in no uncertain terms that it was to get back into the hedgerow.  So it did.

Well, I will be keeping an eye out for this little baby.  Our hedgerow is about the best place it could be right now, but until it can fly, it is still pretty vulnerable.  I will take pictures and write an update if I have anything further.

If you are new to this story, here are the other posts:

The story begins here and I explain how I am getting the pictures. The first update with five hatchlings is here.  The second update featuring a very crowded nest is here.

Comments? Questions? feel free to leave them below.  If you have a guess to what bird of prey we have in the video, feel free to say so and explain why you think so.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Surprise

The surprise I got last night when I went to fix dinner was… no power!  The Mayans are right, the apocalypse is on!  The ironic part of that is this week I spent a lot of time in the comment section of this post  by rarasaur (it’s a great blog) trying to decide what I would wear to the apocalypse.  However, having now lived through 20 hours of no power, overnight, it was cold! I have decided I will wear layers to the apocalypse.

I was most thankful to see this sight this morning at the end of our street:

Woo hoo, this is where I usually put my camera data, but who cares? turn on the power!

We survived our mini-apocolypse by lighting a fire in the fireplace and putting a thin foam like padding over the entrances to our living room:

Entrance to the front hall

Entrance to the kitchen

It was quite cosy.  We even brought in Bubbles.  That would be the Beta Fish than lives with us.  They don’t particularly like the cold, so we have to keep an eye on his water temperature:

Bubbles by the fire

We survived our apocalypse, we even thought of a few more items to put in the survival kits we keep, so great!  I would also like to say that my choice of clothing, “layers”, was awesome.  I rounded off my fashionable outfit by having a cold, that just kind of made the look.

Cheers!