This is the second spring that two robins became parents in a tight little nest woven on the lintel above our front door. Last year, when the nest came down, all that was left were shards of baby-blue eggs. I stood for a long time, wondering if it is sacrilegious to throw out the remains, wondering if the fledglings survived. This spring, I got in on the show earlier, noticing a robust male robin swooping in low to avoid the porch, with mouthfuls of food and construction material. The female crouched in the nest, spreading her warm bottom over her eggs.
Just recently, I looked up to see no sign of the parents, but instead the straining, throaty heads of three newly born birds with their beaks open. It was the beginning of an alarmingly short process that would take them from a protected nest to the uncertain skies, where they would have to learn to survive.
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