It’s Saturday, August 2. All day we have been watching the robin’s nest in the honey locust tree in our back yard. Two baby birds have fletched – left the nest today (that’s what Part 1 of this robin blog is about). It wasn’t until the first two birds were out of the nest that the third bird – definitely the runt- stuck his little beak up.
Oh my goodness. I had seen this third tiny little beak earlier in the week, but only once – I thought maybe he had died or fallen out of the nest. Here he is (could be a she):
It’s already 2:20 in the afternoon. We have not seen the adult robins feed this little bird today. As far as we could tell, the other two birds got all the feedings, and only when they fledged and were out of the nest completely.
So what of this little guy? It would be just hunky-dory for him to stay in the nest for another day or two, get some one-on-one nurturing from mom and dad, don’t you think? Then he’ll be ready!
But where are mom and dad?
Oh, look at him now! 4:25 PM. He’s up on the edge of the nest!
Oh my. He’s so little! He doesn’t have much day left to work his way through this process. It took the second nestling three hours of exercise to work his way from the edge of the nest to finally jumping off the limb into the grass.
Couldn’t this little guy just check out the scene from the edge of the nest and then drop back into the nest and hunker in for the night? Does he really have to fledge today, like the others. Did the robins just declare, “Fledging Day – everyone out! – all of you!”
We keep checking on the bird.
No change.
At 5:02 Rudy came out with us. By accident. Here he is rolling around in the grass practically underneath the bird.
“Hey! Get back in the house!” Megan reprimands him.
5:20 now – the bird has been standing on the side of the nest now for at least an hour. Has he inched away from the nest, just a tiny bit? Does he look like he’s mustering up some courage?
The next step is to jump out onto the limb where he can exercise and practice some important skills, and maybe mom and dad will feed him!
I went back into the house and for some reason, after another 20 minutes – felt compelled to come out and check on the bird. Megan had been standing watch the whole time.
I get under the nest and … oh no! The bird decides it’s time to jump onto the limb. But he stumbles and gets caught between the two limbs that converge under the nest (caught right where that knot is – caught between a knot and a hard spot, you could say). Not pretty. Crap! He flutters his wings and … falls into the grass 8 feet below.
Geez! What happens now? He’s so tiny. Is he hurt?
I zoomed my camera to capture another photo of him sitting there stunned, where he fell.
Megan, the bird, and I were all stunned…
Suddenly the little bird perked up, and hot-tailed (more of a ‘hop-tail’) it toward our west fence, mustering every morsel of strength he had in him. I took a 3-min-45-second video of his journey – it took him that long to make it 30 feet across the grass. I clipped the video so I can post it – the video here starts when he was about half way there and had pooped out. Dad or mom had been perched on the back fence – watching – and swooped down to prod him on ….
After that 3:45 minute marathon across the grass he struggled to force his body over the landscape curbing and then flopped into this bed of lily-of-the valleys…
Whew!
Grow strong, little one!
Do you think he has even a hair’s breadth of a chance for survival?
Maybe?…
The Decompression of a Boomer 
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