Backyard Animal Planet

A few weeks ago we noticed a beautiful robin hanging around in the backyard. Even though the dogs tried their hardest to scare her off, she started making a nest up under the roof over our backyard deck. I loved watching her work so hard on her little nursery through my kitchen window while I did the dishes and that nest just got bigger and bigger everyday. After trimming our trees we even left her a little pile of small twigs and branches and the next day the pile was gone and her nest was finally complete. Everytime I looked outside, there she was diligently sitting on the nest guarding her very precious bright blue robin eggs.

This last Monday turned out to be pretty rainy and chilly and we were having a little Memorial Day get together at our house for my family and the Braaten's. We had a house full so there were kids running in and out all day and our covered deck was constantly full people, chatting and enjoying the protection from the rain. All the while our little robin friend, along with her now constant male companion were flying back and forth from the nest to the fence (totally freaking out my sister who is deathly afraid of birds). I decided to take advantage of the empty nest to check on the eggs who were hopefully staying warm and also snap a quick picture. I climbed up on the railing and extended my arm up over the nest and took a couple pictures but it didn't look like there was anything there and I didn't see the blue eggs I was hoping for...the nest looked empty. Then I zoomed in on the display on the camera and noticed that what I was looking at wasn't actually the bottom of the nest...it was in fact 2 recently hatched, red, featherless baby birds. There were also 2 bright blue eggs tucked safely beneath them. We were all sooo excited and felt like new parents.
Yesterday morning my dad went out to take some video of the 2 infant birds and was thrilled when he found that the 2 birds were now 4 and all 4 of them were hungrily seeking food from their momma, so cute!!!

Here are the pictures I took this morning, while the little mommy was out hunting for worms. I'm going to try and get a new picture of the babies everyday since these little guys have already changed so much in just 2 short days.