An Early Morning Drive

A couple weekends ago, I got up early on a Saturday morning, not as early as I planned, but early enough, and ventured out to get some donuts at the Pioneer Bakery in Boonville and then did some driving around on the backroads around my house.  I found a couple new roads to travel and found lots of photo ops.  Now I just need to get a bigger zoom lens to capture more upclose photos!

The Nest in the Tree

I discovered a robin's nest in one of the trees in the front yard earlier this spring.  It reminded me of the time I had the one in my grill and I attempted to check on it daily.  That plan failed terribly!  After the babies were born, the momma bird didn't want me anywhere near them.  She basically dive-bombed me every time I went outside so these are the only pictures I could get.  I even drove the car through the yard up to the tree to get a close up picture of the birds without getting attacked, however I did it all so hurriedly that I didn't realize the camera was on the wrong setting and none of the pictures turned out :(

Little blue eggs

One day last week when I got home from work, I stepped out back for a few minutes.  While I was out there, I noticed some straw sticking out of the grill.  I thought to myself "great, another bird's nest in the grill".  Nothing grosses me out more than knowing that a bird has built a nest inside the grill.  Every time this happens, I want to buy a new grill.  So out of curiosity, I raise the lid to the grill. 

I was amazed by what I found inside.  There was a gigantic birds nest that took up the entire grill.  That bird must of spent a year making that nest. 

Upon further investigation, I found 3 beautiful blue robin eggs. 

The next day, I thought I would check inside the grill and to my surprise, there was a fourth blue egg.  Well now this fun to me.  I planned on checking each day to see if there would be more eggs or if they had hatched.

I decided to do a little investigating on the Internet about robin eggs.  I came across this link about The Story of Robin Eggs.  It's been raining the past couple of evenings when I've come home, so I haven't gotten a chance to check them yet.  At the same time, I also don't want to bother them so that the momma bird will stay there and hatch her babies.  I plan on getting a flash light and peeking through the hole in the grill to see if the mama bird is in there.  If she isn't, I might raise the lid to see what's going on.

Update 5/16/11

Well momma bird laid a 5th egg and has since hatched the eggs...

This is a picture of the birds taken Friday evening when I discovered they had hatched.  Notice how much room is in the nest.

This is a picture of the birds taken Sunday afternoon.  They look like they have already grown quite a bit!