We have an external blower for our kitchen stove that has a next behind it, that has seen many generations of birds over the years, we usually get 2 or 3 sets of babies a year (I assume different mating pairs). We call them Mr and Mrs Bird (who knows what they are, small birds), and we love watching them. When the babies are born there is a racket in our kitchen, since the sound travels back along the vent pipe to the hood (they don’t nest in the vent pipe, they are in a gap behind the blower motor assembly,between that and the house), and we see them constantly repairing the nest and such. What is really fun is we will be working in the yard, on our many hundreds of feet of beds and such, and the birds will be perched on the blower housing, watching us, and I swear they are saying “yes, get to work, we live here, too, and we like our yard to look nice, have some pride” lol. I am glad it isn’t the cardinal pair nesting in there, the male cardinal is obnoxious and has an attitude problem…
I thought of this thread when I was watering the planter next to my front door. On three separate occasions a bird flew out when I started watering. Sure enough, there is a nest with eggs in my 14" round planter. Now I have to figure out how to water around it to keep the flowers alive. The home-schooled kids next door informed me that it will be a month before the baby wrens leave the nest.
You could get one of those little bulb things that you fill with water and place in the pot for it to dispense water (like folks use when they go on vacation). I have many friends who swear by them that it’s the only thing that keeps their plants alive.
Robins have nested in our hedge in the past, but the neighborhood cats always get the babies. This year we’ve reseeded the entire yard and wish there weren’t quite so many birds around.
When our kids were still in elementary school, we had a momma bird build a nest near our front door. We were thrilled when we finally noticed eggs in the nest. The kids patiently waited for the eggs to hatch, and for several days they took great joy in watching the momma bird tend her chicks. The kids were very, very careful not to disturb the fledgling family.
Then the chicks suddenly disappeared from the nest. We found out that our neighbor’s maid (from a developing country) took our little friends and ate them.
Eewww!
Robins set up a nest right outside our front door on the porch light a couple weeks ago, and the babies just fledged this weekend. I really enjoyed watching the mama through the different stages of the process, and seeing the baby birds. However, I don’t think the postman enjoyed having her swoop out of the nest every time he put the mail in the mailbox directly under the nest.
I think that the robins actually like having their nests near human activity; it keeps away many of the predators and gives them a certain protection.
To keep them from nesting I think you would have to make the spot very undesirable or uncomfortable. They build their nests FAST, so prevention is probably the key!
I live in Florida where me and my neighbors actually compete to lure robins into out yards during the winter (bird baths, foliage, the right kind of tress). The robins are so gorgeous. I envy you Northerners’ robins problem.
Our nest is getting mighty crowded! There are four babies who have grown so quickly and they are jammed in there. I’m wondering now when they will begin to leave.
Timely thread! A couple of chickadees chose the decorative birdhouse that was hanging by the patio door as their home! They were having a bit of a disagreement about this piece of real estate, chattering loudly as if they were arguing, but by the time we finished eating breakfast, one bird already dove into the house and settled in. The hubby (I think) had to go with the wife’s wishes. My cats will have endless entertainment if the birds do decide to nest in there!
DH opened up the grill to cook our chicken last night and found a bird’s nest inside the grill! The birds had flown the coop.
^Or a neighbor’s maid ate the babies, conveniently grilled
One of my favorite memories - S sat on the top of a ladder every day for about an hour watching the robins first build their nest, then sit on their eggs, then babies hatch, next babies open their mouths to be fed, and finally they all flew away. He photographed every step and put all the photos in a little album. We used the back door.
Our cardinal pair are on nest two. We don’t know if they are the same birds as last year, but we think it’s the same female as the March nest ( she has a distinctive stripe). March nest fledged. Hoping we can grab the nest as our ark floats by if the rains continue in Texas!
@Madison85 #51
I sure hope the babies were grilled. I cringe to think they were eaten balut-style.
We had a helluva time explaining it to our kids-- the whole Lion King “circle of life” thing… ugh.
The bird that has been perching near my compost pile is black phoebe. I looked it up on Birds for Southern California. As I thought it was perking there for my worms, my husband saw it fibrin down and picking something many times. I hope there are some worms left in that compost pile because I won’t get a chance to work the pile until Saturday.
My husband also saw with his binoculars a pair of house finch, male and female, here’s hoping for more baby finches in the garden.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balut_%28food%29
Balut style eggs - I saw that on Bizarre Foods!
Some cute and funny photos: http://www.boredpanda.com/unusual-bird-nests/
My 4 baby robins fledged yesterday afternoon. Now time to get the tall ladder to clean the nest off our entryway pendant light.