City/suburban living (technically we are in the suburbs, but the city is just a few blocks away): baby robins in a nest under the eaves, deer prancing down the street, a blond, baby raccoon running furiously across the front lawn, and of course, bats in the belfry?
It has been a dramatic time in the wild-life sector, and it isn’t even summer yet!
It amazed me how quickly the robins went from feather-less lumps to fledglings crowded together and amping up to fly from the nest. It takes a village because a number of adult robins spent several days urging these young ones to fly and when one of my dogs came too close, she was aptly dive-bombed. Anyway, my anxiety level increased when the fledglings perched on the edge of the nest.
And so, my “vigil” began. I looked out to make sure there were no young ones flapping around on the ground or flying low, as first-flyers do, before letting my pack out to do their business. I also put a leash on my little huntress who has been known to grab low-flying birds out of the air and catch squirrels and rabbits. At least with a leash on her I could catch her quickly. In fact, once I had let the dogs out and saw a young robin flapping that I’d somehow missed during my inspection of the yard before letting my dogs out. The bird was over by our chain link fence, and when I approached, she tried to make her way through it. However, she couldn’t quite squeeze through, so I gave her a little boost and off she safely went.
However, the bad news is that one of the fledglings didn’t make it and I am assuming my high prey-drive girl managed to grab the little thing when I wasn’t looking. The good news: no sign of the other three which I’m hoping means they have made it safely to becoming adult robins.
As spring morphs into summer and life in the wild marches on, I’m hoping that next year I’ll find another robin’s nest under the eaves.
madmuser 