Did I ever tell you that when I was 12 or 13 or so, I found a fallen abandoned robin’s nest with 3 babies inside? I didn’t take them right away, I came back later to see if maybe the mom had come back. But the nest was on the ground in plain view and they were tiny, too small to move and would probably be eaten by a cat or something.
So, I took them home and, thinking my mom would be upset, my sister and I hid them in a shoebox in my closet.
My pets didn’t stay secret for long, they were hungry and used to cheeping at their mom for food.
Once my mom discovered my stowaways, she too found them adorable and it was deemed that we would raise them. We got a proper bird cage and went to the bait shop for big fat nightcrawlers to feed them. They grew and grew and eventually opened their eyes and sprouted fluffy and speckled feathered coats.
They were such noisy little rascals.
Eventually, they grew big enough to flap around their little cage and inside the living room. We taught them to fly by taking them outside and letting them fall from our hands into the soft grass, flapping their wings as they went, making their wings stronger and stronger. Soon, we were tossing them into the air and they would flutter down. Finally, they learned to take off on their own and flap haphazardly around. It only took a day or so to learn to fly. Amazing.
On the day we let them go, of course they would not leave. One thing we could not simulate was to learn to hunt, so they kept returning for food. Eventually, though, they must have learned how to stalk insects and worms, because I would see them in the early morning pulling things from the ground. They would come back from time to time and alight on our balcony, peering into the windows, and we would go out and say hello.
To this day, robins are my favourite wild bird. When I saw this baby perched in a tree, waiting for its mom to return with food, I had to get a picture.
Via Flickr:
This morning I stepped out into my back yard to see a robin viciously yanking a worm from the ground. Once she claimed her prize, she lit to a tree where her baby sat, waiting for breakfast, camouflaged by her brown speckles. After feeding her baby, the robin flew off to hunt some more and I stole in for a photo. I stayed only long enough to get a few shots, the poor thing was so terrified of me I worried it would tumble off its tiny perch.
Soph n' Stuff 
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