The robin's nursery: an update

Now there are two eggs in the robin's nest, maybe more. I discovered the second one as we were using the front door entrance to move some furniture into the house last Friday. It killed me to disturb Mama, but the furniture had to come in through that door and not the kitchen door. At least that's what Ken insisted.

Perhaps a female robin lays one egg per day until she's  got the number she was shooting for? I don't know, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if there are 3-4 eggs there now. Whenever I've seen pictures of a mother bird feeding her babies, there have been 3-4 mouths open wide and desperately begging for food.

I've stayed away from the nest until just a few minutes ago, when I had to go onto the front porch to break the mildewed, rotting leaves off my precious geraniums in the window boxes.(Yes, it's still raining/misting/drizzling here in Maine. We have the distinction, now, of the third rainiest June since the late 1800's. July has started out on the same note.) Killed me to have to disturb mama, but she tolerated me extremely well this time, stayed in her nest (glaring at me) and, if I'm not mistaken, actually posed for this photo update.

Since I'm soon to become the godmother of a nestful of baby robins, I decided I'd better do some internet research on the nesting/hatching procedure. According to what I read, Mama will sit on the nest for about 14 days, which makes her due date on or about July 9. The fledglings will leave the nest about two weeks later, or about July 23.

Then I'll get my porch back.

P.S. This is a neat site. I just learned lots about robin eggs, the mother, the father, the hatching, you name it.