By all means, make yourself right at home!

Yesterday morning I was doing the several-times-weekly task of dead-heading my hanging petunias on the front porch.

I'd last done the dead-heading on Saturday, and at that time I noticed a few twigs in one of the pots. I wondered where the twigs had come from, then I promptly forgot about them.

So yesterday was dead-heading day again. I'd finished with five of the hanging baskets and moved on to the sixth and final one.

I lifted it down from its hook and got a surprise: A beautifully-constructed bird's nest.

While the owner of this nest was, perhaps, a bit forward in claiming a nesting spot in one of my flower baskets, I can't help but be excited and pleased.

Watering the petunias in the basket will be tricky, but I think it can be done. If all else fails, I'll simply abandon the watering and let the mother and her babies enjoy their home. I know there will be babies, or one, at least, because I went back to the nest less than an hour later and found one newly-laid robin's egg nestled in it.

I hope this story has a happy ending. I say that because, several summers ago, a robin built a nest in my ficus tree, which sits on the front porch all summer but spends the rest of the year in my front hallway.

That mother robin laid three eggs. I watched the nest carefully, eager to see the babies when they arrived. Then I checked one morning and was devastated at the sight of dead baby birds scattered on the porch floor. A predator had gotten to them in the night.

The new robin's nest is much more inaccessible. At least I think it is. I hope it is.

Meanwhile, that first robin's nest, the one in the ficus tree, is still there. It's such a masterpiece of construction that I won't even think of removing it.