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🐣 My latest simple pleasure 🐦


I hope you've been able to rediscover some simple pleasures during the pandemic. Here’s mine:

Last Friday, a very nice day, I spent a lot of time outside doing little clean-up chores in my backyard - raking, picking up twigs and branches that had come down from the neighbor's tree over the winter, etc. I cleaned a few twigs off a shelf I attached to the wood fence to hold my radio that I use when I'm outside.

On Saturday, another nice day, I discovered that a bird had built a nest on that shelf - in one day! Okay, maybe Mr. Bird helped, but whatever. Obviously, the twigs I'd cleared away the day before were just the beginnings of that nest.

At first I didn't know what kind of bird it was, but naturally I kept an eye on things. Yesterday I found out that it's a robin. Later that day I discovered one egg in the nest (Mama Robin was elsewhere when I looked). I didn't check today since we finally had a much-needed wet, rainy day.

What amazes me most is that this shelf-based nest is only about three feet off the ground. I’d have thought she’d have chosen something higher. Needless to say, I’ve been very careful when entering and exiting my fenced backyard and taking extra care to shut the gate quietly, as well as giving Mrs. Robin a wide berth as I head to the patio area. The really fun part has been sharing my new lodger with my grandchildren via text and photos.

And hey, we're in for several nice days coming up the rest of this week! 🌞

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The babies left the nest yesterday. Apparently, with a little "help" from me. Yesterday I decided to do some weeding in my back yard. I was out there for about 20 minutes, which was as long as I could stand it because the gnats were horrible. But I got too close to the nest and the babies decided to make a break for it.

I made the mistake of wearing my headphones while listening to music on my MP3 player so I didn't realize I was creating a ruckus. But as soon as I noticed a baby robin scurrying across the yard, I picked up my "toys" and left. I thought it was just one birdie, but I soon discovered they all jumped ship. To be fair, the nest was getting crowded, but whatever.

Mama and Pop Robin appeared to go a little crazy, but they continued feeding the babies (whew!). They returned with worms or whatever and chased the babies around the yard to feed them (I was watching from my window). I noticed that some of the babies were able to unsteadily fly nearly as high as the top of my six-foot fence, but that's as far as they got, thank goodness. I was worried that if they got over the fence they wouldn't be able to return and would be vulnerable to neighborhood cats or whatever.

Today I had to leave for a few hours and when I returned, I discovered there's only one baby left inside my fenced backyard. I have no idea where the other three went, but I was consoled by the fact that Mama and Pop are still feeding the "runt" of the brood whose flying skills are pretty shaky. I was worried that he had been abandoned. Whew!

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