What do they say about a face only a mother could love? The robin family seems to be a good example of this. They are not cute babies. However, it still makes for entertaining theater when the family sets up shop beneath your deck and you can watch the drama unfold.

When my son asked if he could drill a hole in the house to set up a webcam for a live stream, I said, "Ask you mother." She said, "Yes." We actual found a less permanent way to run a cable outside and he set about the logistics of attaching a camera underneath the deck boards. Why use a drill and nails, when duct tape will do just fine?

As we were running the cable and camera to a good vantage point, a mob of robins were assembling nearby to come up with a plan to defend their nest. I assume it was the mom and dad, and maybe an enforcement uncle as well. Aaron and I got our work done and got away without any dive bomb incidents and without disturbing the nest.

When he first discovered the nest, there were three eggs in it. Unfortunately, they all hatched by the time we got the camera set up. Almost any noise will prompt the babies to crane their necks upward thinking it is mommy (or daddy or the enforcement uncle) with a morsel of food. They chirp occasionally.

Mom seems to look back at the camera now and again, but is yet to attack it that I have noticed.  We learned a few years ago that robins will defend the territory around their nest by chasing off other robins, even if it is their own reflection in a window, and they will repeatedly slam themselves into the glass to scare away the 'other' bird. We expect the birds to fly the coop within a couple of weeks.

I'm quite proud of my son for coming up with the idea to live stream this, and pulling off the technical part of it, which includes monitoring a laptop at our house from his apartment in Minneapolis.

 

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