icicles hanging

icicles hanging

from a red and white octagon --

Winter, STOP!

I know there are places in the world where snow never ends and places where snow is never seen, but here in the heartland of America, winter is capricious. Sometimes, no snow, sometimes snow comes and melts and piles up again, and sometimes snow lasts all winter. 
          I don't mind snow, especially squeaky, sparkly powder, but I am not fond of ice, especially on roads. But this year was the coldest in nearly two decades, with repeated arctic blasts sending temperatures plunging to double digits below zero F. "Polar vortex," they call it, and after weekly rounds for several months, we are more than ready for winter to simply STOP! 
          However, it was so cold on Groundhog Day that our local woodchuck stayed firmly in his subterranean nest and refused to emerge to see whether he even had a shadow, so we can only assume that we still have six more weeks of winter to endure. 
          On the other hand, I have been seeing flocks of robins flying through the bare trees and goldfinches are molting from winter olive drab to sunflower summer yellow. Like all things in nature, nothing lasts forever, not even the darkest, coldest winter. Right now, a robin sitting on the branch of our cherry tree is singing: "Cheerily, cheer up, cheer up, cheerily, cheer up!"

first robin of spring

first robin of spring,

bold redbreast against bare branch,

waiting for ground thaw

Coming back from a walk in the woods I catch a flash of red-orange in the bare branches of a tree by Jack's Pond, the first Robin of Spring. Then another, and another, three red-breasted Robins, plump and healthy. The ground is still too frozen for earthworm-delving, so the Robins flit silently from tree to tree, searching for the last of the wild plums and chokecherries. They've been here all winter, roosting in trees, but mostly go unnoticed until they start hopping around on the grass, cocking an ear to the ground, listening for earthworms.

near Osceola

near Osceola

a nest in a cherry tree with

one broken blue egg

Late November, Cornelian cherries hang on the tree, attracting birds with their bright red color. I, too, am drawn to the clusters of vermilion fruit. And so I spot, through the branches bare of leaves, an old Robin's nest. In the bottom, nestled in the grass lining, one blue egg, pecked open, the remains of yolk lacquering the inside of the shell. Winter winds will blow the nest to the ground. Its crumbling contents -- mud, grass, egg shell, dried yolk -- will become mulch for the grass that will line another nest in the spring.

unhatched robin's egg

unhatched robin's egg

hidden under the grass lining

of the empty nest

On this hot, dry, windy August day, I walk over to look at the old apple tree, half dead, with black leaves on black branches, the other half struggling to stay alive, its leaves turning yellow. This is the tree that sheltered a nest with three blue eggs, and then one lone hatchling. It's been over a month since I walked away from the empty nest, feeling empty inside, the baby Robin gone too soon. Now I wonder if the nest is still there. It is. I peer inside, not expecting to find anything, but then I catch a glimpse of a tiny bit of blue peeking through the grass lining. Could it be a fragment of egg shell? Usually the mother bird disposes of any bits and pieces when the babies hatch. I push the grass aside and there, to my surprise, lies a perfect blue egg. Well, a perfect shell, but the insides are surely dried up by now. This must be one of the three original eggs, one that never hatched. Perhaps it got pushed under the lining by the lone hatchling, and went unnoticed by whatever got the baby. It is a strange feeling, finding this hidden egg, like being let in on some mysterious secret.

rain on an empty nest

rain on an empty nest –

mother robin flits and calls

for her lost baby

A couple of days ago when I passed the robin's nest, the lone nestling was hunched down in the bottom, black eyes open, a few more feathers covering its gray skin, while the mother hopped about on the lawn looking for worms and insects. Today, dark clouds clot the sky and the wind is blowing the apple tree, tossing the nest about. The mother flits from branch to branch, clucking in distress. Holding my breath, I peek inside the nest. Empty. That baby is too young to fly. Maybe it fell out and is somewhere near? One time I found a baby bird teetering around on the ground, the parents hovering in a nearby tree, chirping. My birder friend said the parents will continue to feed the baby until it can fly. Like this mother robin, I start looking around for the missing baby, searching the grass under the tree. Nothing. Fat drops of rain begin to fall and I make a dash for cover. All day long I feel restless, remembering the empty nest. All that work, for what? But life goes on. In a few days the mother will feel an urge to gather mud and grass. She will build another neat little nest, lay more beautiful blue eggs, patiently warm them through the bare spot on her breast.

one lone baby bird

one lone baby bird

in a nest where there were once

three blue robin's eggs

Every time I've passed the apple tree, the mother robin has been sitting on her nest, perfectly filling the round opening like a domed lid on a tea cup. The gray and black feathers on her back and wings and head blend in with the branches of the tree and the grasses and mud of the nest. Only her rust-orange breast peeping above the rim of the nest signals her presence, but to most observers she would be invisible. Yesterday she was perched on the rim of the nest and I saw an open beak poking up out of the nest. As soon as she saw me she flew away, clucking her displeasure. From telephoto distance I dared a quick peak at the baby birds that must have recently hatched from the three blue eggs I had seen a week ago. But all I saw was one fuzzy baby, curled up, eyes closed. No egg shells, but the mother robin would have carried off the fragments. What happened to the other two eggs? Snakes, squirrels, mice, cats, blue jays and crows all eat bird eggs. Predators usually eat all the eggs, so this nestling was lucky to survive. I hope I didn't advertise the presence of the nest to jays or crows, because they are highly intelligent and by watching the nest I may have inadvertently led them to their next meal. This one lone nestling will not have to compete with nest mates for food, so at least it has a better chance of surviving long enough to take flight.

three blue robin's eggs

three blue robin's eggs

in a cup of grass and mud –

mother flown away

Walking under an old apple tree, suddenly I catch a glimpse of a bird flying away from a low-hanging limb. There, at eye-level, I spot a pendulous nest made of grass and mud, built in the crotch of a branch. The nest is an amazing feat of engineering. How do you make a hanging container entirely of mud and grass that can withstand rain and wind? It takes the mother Robin six days to build a nest. I am wondering whether there are eggs or even chicks inside the nest. Approaching cautiously so I don't touch anything, I peer inside. Three beautiful azure eggs nestle inside on the fine grass lining. These eggs were laid, one a day. Then the mother begins to incubate them, which takes about 12-14 days. Sitting on the eggs to keep them warm, she senses their temperature through a bare brood patch on her breast where the feathers have molted. She turns the eggs frequently with her beak and feet to maintain an even temperature and so the embryo doesn't stick to the inside of the egg. If it's quite hot, she may raise up from the eggs to allow them to cool. She only leaves the eggs for a quarter of an hour to get food. If it's cold or rainy, she may stay on the nest and the male, who stays nearby, will bring her food. After the chicks hatch, both parents help feed the babies. I don't know when these eggs were laid, but I will check back in a few days to see if they've hatched. This may be this mother's second clutch. She can produce up to three successful broods in one year, though many of the chicks will not survive to adulthood.

red-breasted robins

red-breasted robins

in the top of a dead tree,

gray clouds moving fast

As a young child, the red-breasted Robin was one of the first birds I learned to recognize, both by its reddish-orange breast and by its cheerily song. Often when I played outside in the yard, I would watch a Robin hop across the grass, stop and turn one bright black eye to peer at the ground, then bob its head to spear a worm and brace its yellow legs to pull it out. Sometimes I would find a blue egg broken on the ground, the yellow yolk spilling out. I would add the fragile shell to my collection of beautiful found objects. One time, I found a Robin's nest hidden in a low bush, made of sticks stuck together with mud and lined with grass. This, too, I added to my collection. When I was two years old, I cut a hank of my hair from the top of my head and used it to fashion a nest, which I carefully placed in a bush, hoping a Robin would find it and lay her blue eggs in it. This was right before Easter and my mother had a hard fit when she saw my mangled hair. She demanded to know why I had done such a thing. When I said "bird nest," she thought I meant that I had tried to make my hair look like a bird's nest. To her that was something messy and ugly, but to me a nest was a thing of great beauty. This spring I found a Robin's egg on the ground, completely whole. I brought it home and placed it in a Robin's nest that resides on a shelf in my studio. Today, out for a walk, I see one Robin in the top of a dead tree, then another joins it and another. I stop and watch, wondering what they are looking for so high up, perhaps berries or caterpillars. Something alarms them, maybe my presence, and one of them utters PEEEK tut tut tut tut! Two of them fly away, but the first one, highest in the dead tree, remains unperturbed, even after I continue my walk.