Deep in the last weeks of January, I have been sent a video link to the lifecycle of a robin nest. I am hungry for signs of spring, and I greedily clicked though without hesitation. Even in this wimpy winter that hasn’t required jumper cables or mukluks, an online video of a mama robin is welcome stuff. My kitchen window birdfeeder is ripe with chickadees, nuthatches, and a bright red married cardinal couple. But I think of where the robins are…somewhere warm in Florida, roosting together in a saw palmetto. I want to think of them there, and I want to think of them coming home to my blooming crabapple tree warm in the May sunshine. For a few brief morning minutes, I allow myself to fly away.
This short video has haunted me for days, reminding me of my place in the world. Take a look.
Several summers ago, my boys found a baby robin in the backyard. She was clearly too young to be on her own; flying away was not an option quite yet. She had enough feathers on her wings to get herself safely out of a tree without a deadly landing, but her landing strip was a backyard frequented by a tribe of boys and motley dogs. We left her in the backyard for a few hours, watching to see if her parents would come for her, or feed her. Even with dogs and boys contained, it became apparent that this little robin didn’t have good odds. Mama was diving and squawking, but little bird wasn’t able to do much to help herself.
My weeping, pleading little boys could not and would not put her carefully back in the woods behind the garage. They were sure (as was I) that little robin wouldn’t live long. I hate moments like this. So that’s how I became a mama robin.
Peep, as she was aptly named, took up roost in our screen house. I found a phone number for then-Duluth-resident Laura Erickson, who is the radio voice of the national “For the Birds” segment that can be heard on public and community radio stations. Laura didn’t give us much hope for success, but encouraged us to proceed carefully, guarding our hearts. Google produced enough information for us to feel that at least we could keep her fed with the right foods—primarily worms and forest fruits. It also revealed that harboring a fledgling robin is a violation of federal and state law. The mud grows deeper.
Peep seemed pretty happy to have us help her out, and before long, she had us run
ning. Every time she saw one of us, she would peep. A lot. She was a bossy little dictator.
To be brought to your knees by a 4-ounce baby bird is profoundly humbling. If you thought newborn humans are work, I’m here to tell you they got nothin’ on baby robins. And if you thought parenting a kid or two or five or what-have-you is work, I say pshaw to you!
These little robins eat from sun up to sundown, and that is no exaggeration. Every 10 to 20 minutes, they want to eat. As you watch the video, know that the babes went from pink little egg-sized newbies to full-sized birds in about 14 to 21 days. They need tremendous amounts of food to grow so rapidly. Their bowels keep pace with their beaks.
While Peep pooped all over my screen house, flying five feet at a time, and calling for more grub, I was transformed into a worm hunter. Stubbornly, I refused to go to the bait store. For crying out loud, we have worms! I’m not spending $3 a day on worms in a Styrofoam cup.
I turned over the boulders that make my garden walls, scoured the compost piles. I soaked an area of the lawn with the hose, forcing the worms out of the ground. I paid the neighbor kids for worms harvested in their yards. I scraped back the forest floor behind the garage, looking for anything I could catch in the leafy duff. As I drove to the grocery store, or to the baseball field with the boys, I found myself eyeing potential worm sites.
I eventually gave in and began buying worms at the bait store. Three cups a trip, quickly making its mark on our family budget.
I was exhausted, and actually near tears a few times. So much work. How, how, how, do robin parents know where worms are? How do they fledge two, even three, broods in a summer? How can robins look like they’re lolling around so casually when they’re working so relentlessly? How can I be so removed from nature that I cannot find worms? I have a house, and a job, and a car, and I can read and write and deliver babies, and I can’t find worms. I felt as if I were being shown, with exquisite effectiveness, how very limited my skills and abilities. Don’t get too sure of yourself, lady. You might have a refrigerator filled with food, but you can’t even feed a bird, much less yourself and your kids, should you need to survive in the real world.
Peep eventually grew feathers and left our screen house (decorated with white droppings, thank you). While our guest, she enjoyed the non-stop attention of a human midwife for 11 days. She fluttered away into the woods behind the garage, and came back by everyday for a week or so. Then she was gone.
To watch this video is to see what we all must endure—whether we be human mothers, robin mothers, or one who gives birth to a dream. You build your nest, you work hard to make it safe and strong, you follow your instincts, you make way for what you have wrought, and then you let it go.
It’s all so simple. It happens so often, so universally, that we don’t even know how astoundingly evolved we are for our work as life-givers. Nor do we know how blessed our neighbors are with skills and abilities for their particular deed. It just comes to us. We are so lucky, so blessed, so capable.
I’m thinking of the robins, waiting their return, knowing that spring is on her way, with all her life force.
