Leaving the Nest is Hard

A lot has happened here since the last time I reported in. We have had a hail storm and casualties and empty nests and more Pickle Ice. Happy things and sad things intermingled, as it happens in real life. Because real life is not a Disney movie, and not every sparrow is watched over by an Unseen Hand.

Here is a glimpse at the four baby robins the last time I saw all four in the nest.

There was a hail storm on Wednesday night or more accurately in the wee hours early on Thursday, and Bow woke up the household with his howling and displaying against the gods of the storm. In the morning, when I checked on the the nest, it was lopsided, the rosebush had been bent over by the winds, and there was one baby bird on the ground that I saw right away.

Then later I saw that there was also another baby robin on its own, standing on the ground.

It was too early for them to fledge,  because they normally would do that at thirteen days, and they were only nine days old at the time. However, when baby robins do fledge, they don't exactly fly away. They jump out of the nest, flapping their wings inefficiently and still have to be fed and watched over by their parents. I learned this by looking it up, as I did not know anything about it at the time.

Two baby robins on the ground after the storm

Of the two baby birds in the picture above, the one in the background died of injuries from the fall. The one in the foreground survived the fall intact and I later saw it on the lawn being fed by its mother. This does not necessarily mean it will survive to adulthood, but at least it has a chance. But there are predators about, and a bird that cannot fly is especially vulnerable to snakes.

On Thurday afternoon, Bow's friends came by with the bananas as usual, and she also brought him issues of the Missouri Conservationist and some more Pickle Ice as a present.

As Bow's friend was leaving, she saw a young rat snake on the prowl and alerted me to its presence. I came out with my walking stick and a tupperware container, to see if I could relocate the snake to a place where it would not go after the baby robins. But the snake ran away from me and disappeared by the tulip tree, which means it could have gone back later for the birds. However, I can safely report that much later that day I saw the healthy baby bird being fed by its mother on the lawn, and the one who died I disposed of uneaten by snakes.

The remaining two baby robins in the lopsided nest

 And this left two baby robins still in the nest by my door, somehow hanging on in  a very lopsided rosebush.

Two days after the storm, they were still in there, being fed by their parents and thriving and growing. And then yesterday morning, when I went out to check on them, I saw one of the nestlings perched on the edge of the nest, and then it ventured forth beyond into the branches of the rosebush.

It was still crying to be fed, but hardly the helpless little baby it used to be.

I had other things to do that day, such as writing articles about Austin Petersen, so I did not actually see the remaining robins taking off. But that afternoon, the nest was empty.

There was no sign of the baby robins anywhere around there, but the mother seemed to have a message for me.

She seemed to be saying "My little ones are grown." Or anyway, that's what I thought at the time. And not expecting to see the newly flown robins, I went on a long walk. On my walk, I saw a butterly in the grass by the fence.

I think it was a Little Wood Satyr Butterfly.

Little Wood Satyr Butterfly

As I continued along my walk, in the grass by the barn, I saw something quite familiar. It was one of the baby robins, just hopping along by itself.

I followed it and saw it take cover in the tall grass of the pasture.

When they leave the nest they cannot fly, but apparently these baby robins can walk quite a distance. Hopefully the parents are still watching over them and feeding them until their wings are strong enough to fly. Leaving the nest is a much more gradual process than we have been led to believe!

So this is what has happened this past week. Time flies so fast, Soon I must leave for the Libertarian National Convention. And Lawrence will be spending time with Bow.

Four Hatchlings in the Nest by My Door

Last time I wrote, I was worried that the four robin eggs in the nest by my door would never hatch.

In the course of less than two days, all four baby robins have hatched out. The eggs are gone, completely replaced by hatchlings. But it is still too early to know how many will survive to fly away.

I was lucky to be able to see the very last one emerge from its egg shell.

This was a slow process that started early yesterday morning and culminated just around noon. At first it was just a tiny hole, then later we could see the beak, and quite a while later, the egg shell was almost divided in two, with the creature inside visibly moving.

And then, it suddenly happened so fast!

Still looking a lot like an unformed human fetus, it came out all at once.

And now there are four baby robins in the nest by my door.

But oddly enough, in the nest by the fence, the third egg never hatched. Here is what the nestlings look like by comparison.

The robin mother who laid her eggs first and whose eggs began to hatch first is not the one who will necessarily bring up the largest number of young.

But whether hatched or unhatched, these little ones have no chance of survival without the parents' help. They don't become individuals until they leave the nest. And this, for a lot of people is a problematic concept.

What does Bow think about the baby robins? He said to me, when pressed: טוב שצפור אמא. "It's good that the bird is a mother." His focus was entirely on the mother robin and her right to reproduce. He did not care about the babies at all.

How do we recognize a parent robin? It's that bird that comes at you when you are looking at the babies in the nest. They can get very upset with you if they think you are meddling with their young. Nature gives them a fierce protective instinct, because if the mother bird did not care, who would? In nature, we so seldom see bad mothers, because the offspring of bad mothers do not survive. I favor a non-interventionist policy that keeps it that way. So I film what I see, but I don't interfere. Laissez faire! That's my motto.

RELATED

For those of my readers in Texas County Missouri, there is a meeting tonight, May 4th at Checo's Mexican restaurant in Licking with a representative of the Austin Petersen campaign. Dinner at 6:30pm. Speaker at 7:30pm. Pay for own meal. 

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All Your Eggs in One Basket

The weather has been getting much warmer. It is almost like summer weather sometimes, even though it's still April. Bow enjoys the warm weather and spends a lot of time out-of-doors. Also there are summer treats readily available now, like watermelon, which Bow loves.

Out in the woods. mayapples are blossoming. As their name implies, this should be happening in May.

The bees are very busy in my backyard, and they manage to coexist peacefully with my dogs, enjoying the dandelions that I permit to grow there.

Just outside my door, the robins are being fruitful and multiplying. Remember when  there was only one egg in the nest in the rosebush out side my door? There are now four!

I also found another nest by the fence. It had three eggs in it before the one by the door had more than one. It still has three eggs in it now, but I was alarmed to find one broken egg shell on the grass a couple of days ago, not far from the nest by the fence.

Is it safe to put all your eggs in one basket or one nest? Even robins diversify. They have several clutches each year.

I  don't think all chimpanzees should be sent to a few centralized locations. Even if no one there means them any harm, one epidemic could devastate their numbers, and the real job of chimpanzee conservation is outside of Africa, in case they are destroyed in their native habitat.

I have decided to be proactive and support libertarian candidates, because they are the only ones who will fight for property rights. And the property rights of chimpanzee owners outside Africa are the only thing that stands between chimpanzees and extinction. It is not right that the US Fish & Wildlife Service is sending US taxpayer money to Jane Goodall in Africa, while eroding the rights of chimpanzee owners in the US. By their own admission, at http://www.fws.gov/endangered/what-we-do/chimpanzee.html;

"The Service has funded $9.4 million in grants for conservation efforts to protect chimpanzees, matched by an additional $11.5 million in leveraged funds. These grants have supported field projects in 19 countries and include: developing conservation policies and local leadership and improving law enforcement to ensure the long-term survival and protection of chimpanzees and gorillas."

They have taken funds earmarked for conservation in the US and sent them to Africa. There are no wild chimpanzees or gorillas in the United States. The great apes are not within the purview of their jurisdiction.  While we can argue that the original mission may or may not be constitutional, the US Fish & Wildlife Service  has gone rogue and is operating outside any rights delegated to it by the people.

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