Sunday, June 1, 2008

New Treasure

I thought about titling this post “Blue Eggs and Cherries,” but I wasn’t sure if anyone besides me would find the humor in the “Green Eggs and Ham” connection.

About a week ago, Ryan came running into the house yelling at me that there was a nest in our cherry tree with robin eggs in it! (He really did correctly identify them, my sweet little ornithologist.) He had discovered it during one of his climbs. Ok, so I’ve done plenty of tree climbing in my life, but it looked just a little high for me to venture to at this point in life. He wanted to take some pictures, so I sent the camera up the tree with him. Here are the pictures he took…
We had a little discussion about the importance of leaving the eggs and the nest alone, and not scaring off the mother robin. But every day this week, he still took a moment to check on the nest.

Yesterday we were outside working in the garden, and he realized he hadn’t checked on the nest for A WHOLE DAY. He climbed up the tree and excitedly screamed at me that the eggs had hatched! Again, not feeling up to tree-climbing myself, I sent him up with the camera…
Now that we know they’ve hatched, we hear their little squeaks most of the day (starting quite early in the morning, I might add). It has been a fun experience to share with Ryan, and I know we’ll enjoy watching their progress.

One funny side note…in the fall, a black garbage bag blew into one of our other trees. It was too high for us to reach it, and it has really bothered me all winter. Amid all of the snowy, white beauty of the yard, this black garbage bag was always there, blowing in the wind. As the wind and snow came throughout the winter, it has slowly shredded a little bit, and some pieces have fallen to the ground for us to collect and throw away. But some still lingered in the tree – I thought forever. Well, apparently it also bothered the little mother robin. She took what was left in the tree and used it in her nest. I LOVE that mother robin! (Take a look at the pictures again. You can see the remains of the black garbage bag carefully woven into the nest.)

1 comment:

Tim said...

Ryan did a great, great job with his pics. In a tree no less! Love the post. It makes me feel like I'm not the only nut out there taking pics of every other "nature" shot that happens my way :O)