Then the eggs hatched and four little robbins with closed eyes were lying in the nest. An boy did they grow quick. Seems like in no time they were chirping for food and before they were even big enough to hold onto a branch on their own, they looked too big for the nest, especially four of them. But in the nest they all stayed. All this while whenever we went to open the gate to leave or get the newspaper or just walk down the driveway, mama robin, now joined by papa robin would fly around and dive bomb us and try to get us away from the nest. My dog Apollo thought they were playing with him and he would sit at the end of the driveway and when they flew at him he would run and jump after them. The end of the driveway where the bush was I ended up having to put some fencing as Apollo was tearing up the little garden and flowers planted there.
The babies grew and one day all four were out of the nest each on their own branch. Apollo was kept inside mostly as we didn't want him grabbing a baby if one should try and fly off a branch and not be ready. There was a day when he was sitting on the front stoop and he was eyeing something in the big garden in front of the house. My wife went out and saw one of the babies hiding under one of the plants. All of a suddon Apollo jumped up and dove into the garden The baby robin learned to fly very quickley and made his (her?) exit. That was the last we saw of them. The other three were no longer on their branches and mom and dad were no longer on the wires watching over the kids.
Now we have a bird living in a hanging basket that is near our back door. I don't know what kind of bird it is. It is a little bigger than a common sparrow and it's feathers are a little lighter. Also it's beak is longer and pointier with a slight downward arc to it. I don't think there is a nest in the basket as I have looked in and only saw a spot it has carved into the soil. My wife says she has seen two of the birds go in there, but every time I check, only one flies out and I see no eggs nor the twigs usually used to make a nest. I think it's just his (her?) roosting spot.We shall see.
And to top it all off, now we have a bunch of black swallowtail caterpillars eating the parsley plants. Blask swallowtails lay their egs on parsley plants and they hatch and the caterpillars don't need to search for food, they love parsley. We had ten such caterpillars last year but only one survived to make it to a butterfly. My wife was not happy last year as I would not let her cut the parsley off the plant to use in her cooking. This year we bought two plants so she can use one and the caterpillars can pig out on the other. OF course mommy butterfly laid eggs on both plants and both plants have about 15 caterpillars each. They are the size (and look just like) mouse turds only with a faint green stripe about midway across their back. In two weeks they will be about two inches long and be ready to chrysalis. When they get a little larger, I'm going to pick the caterpillars off one of the parsley plants and put them onto the other. This way my wife will be able to use the other one for cooking. The caterpillars will get the larger plant.
I need to put up some kindof screening as when they get bigger, the birds can sot them and come and get them. Especially when they are moving to find a place to chrysalis. Also, they need to hang at about a 45 degree angle to verticle otherwise they die. We had one 90 degree to verticle (basically horizontal) and it never came out of it's cocoon. Need to put in a bunch of sticks they can chrysalis on.
Learn more here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papilio_polyxenes
