Poor Mrs. Robin

American Robin incubating on her nest over our front door.

A robin built a nest over our front door. She sat on the eggs for over a week. Today we did not see robins around at all, so we looked in the nest with a mirror. There are no eggs in the nest. A predator got them. Poor Mrs. Robin.

Ouch. We feed bad for the robins because they lost their eggs. The eggs were just about to hatch. We had gotten used to looking at the robin incubating over our door and we would quietly enter so as to disturb her as little as possible. Sometimes we would just use the back door. We looked forward to seeing the babies raised. We have seen much predation on birds' nests in all our years of watching and writing books about birds. The experience doesn't get any easier and we still feel angst when we see it.

It's hard to know what got the eggs, as we did not see the thief. Best guess is that it was a Blue Jay for we have seen them hanging around the yard and robins chasing them. But many things raid birds nests including, Chipmunks, Red Squirrels, Raccoons, snakes, crows and more.

There is about a 50% mortality on nests for birds who build open cups and a slightly less percentage for birds who nest in bird houses.

The one consolation is that we know the robins will build a new nest right away (in a new spot) and try again, and again, and again. Chances are they will be successful. The urge to reproduce is strong and that's what keeps bird populations going.