The Life Cycle of Turdus migratorius

Maybe she longs for the tree she sees / reflected in the glass, but I'm only guessing. / I watch until she gives up and swoops off. / I wait for her return

                                                    -“Bird” by Dorianne Laux 

During the month of May, a couple of robins were determined to create a nest on our deck. To be fair, it was a nice spot. A pillar that held the lattice wall on one side of the deck ran right up against the house. Above it was a little overhang from the second-story floor. This secluded area was a fine place away from the wind.

The birds collected all sorts of long, dead leaves from the nearby daylily plants and wove it into a nest. My dad went out there with a broom and pushed it off the pillar. The following day, the robins were at it again. And then the broom came out once more and down the nest fell, crashing to the ground. This process of building-destroying-rebuilding went on for about two weeks. The only reason why my dad finally stopped was because he figured, if the birds were that determined, they might as well have their nest. If the deck people came to repair the lattice wall while the robins were nesting, they’d have to work around the birds.

* 

The chicks hatched on May 27. Their mother had finally departed from the nest, and I noticed movement just over the rim. When the mother returned with a single worm, three heads popped up from the nest. Beaks wide open, bulging eyes closed, their necks stretched out to get a chance at being fed. Three little birds for the three children that grew up in the house. A trio.

* 

The baby robins matured quickly. One dominant bird was always stepping over the others as they gradually outgrew their home. It made sure to receive their mother’s worm first, whereas there was one poor bird that was always pushed down further into the nest. In fact, for the longest time, my dad thought there were only two robins that were born because the third one hardly poked its head up.

* 

On the morning of June 3, I had glanced out the side door to glimpse the birds. To my surprise, one of the robins was fluttering from deck post to deck post. It looked pretty confident in his abilities. There was still a bird sitting in the nest, but the third robin was missing. My guess was it had already taken flight.

When I returned home a couple of hours later, the chick sitting in the nest was the only one that remained. I wondered if its mother was ever going to return to feed it, or if she had left her offspring for good.

“You have to fly, little bird,” I remember thinking. “If you want to survive.”

I watched as the bird pushed up against the nest’s edge, twitching its wings, but it would not take that next step to at least perch.

Sometime in the evening, when I had become preoccupied with other things, the nest was finally empty. 

* 

The following weeks, we’d occasionally spy the baby birds out in the backyard. You could always tell which ones they were, for their plumage was still speckled with white. One of them was fatter than the other two, so it must have been the dominant chick. My dad pushed their old nest off of the deck now that they were grown, and a replacement never appeared.

From the other side of the kitchen window, I smiled one day when I saw two of the young birds walking along the patio pavement. An adult robin came by and offered a worm to one of the youngsters. It seems that Mama was still caring for them.

* 

In the end of June, we had thrown together a BBQ for dinner. Once we were finished eating, my brother grabbed the grill’s covering from off the ground and discovered a very tiny dead baby bird on the patio. Flies circled around it, but its body hadn’t decomposed yet, so it must have happened pretty recently. Our guess was that the wind had carried the chick out of its nest and to its death. Its parents did not have the foresight to nest in a secure place like the robins from a month ago.

* 

Four days later, my brother discovered another dead bird in the same area as the small chick. He alerted my dad, and a shovel was grabbed. When my dad went to pick up the speckled robin, its head flopped around. One of our baby robins, the trio I had watched grow up, had most likely broken its neck against the kitchen window.

* 

On July 9, I stepped out onto the deck to inspect the soil of my flower pots. I started with the two pots on my deck before I moved onto the remaining one on the deck landing. As I was looking at the purple petunias, I found it odd that two houseflies were buzzing around my flowers. I looked up over the railings, and I saw a scattering of gray-brown feathers in the lawn by the pine trees. I walked over to take a better look, and there was a dead robin on its stomach.

Something clearly must have attacked this adult robin. (Who can know if this was an all-grown bird from the trio?) Perhaps a cat or the neighborhood hawk/falcon got to it. Either way, the creature had no desire to actually eat the bird because its body was still intact. Its head was tucked beneath its body.

A few hours later, I pointed this bird out to my dad. The shovel came out again, and a shallow grave was dug beside one of the pine trees. The robin was carefully scooped up and placed inside it. Most of its strewn feathers were pushed into the hole and over the bird. Soil was thrown onto the grave, and the back of the shovel was used to smooth out the dirt. The backyard sprinklers were going to kick on in minutes.