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Karla and I were watching robins catching worms on the lawn when I noticed one heading for a small cedar tree.

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I decided to check it out. There in the cedar only four feet off the ground was the robin sitting on chicks.

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The babies must have recently hatched as they were pretty much featherless and barely able to open their eyes.

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It was surprising how fast they grew. two days later more feathers were appearing.

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In two more days, wing feathers developed.

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Mom and dad were working hard to keep them full. In my observations it looked like they were feeding the four chicks from 20 to 30 feet of worm plus insects every day.

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By the fourth day they hardly fit under the adults.

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The parents were making sure that each one got their share.

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It surprised me how many worms they could carry.

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In six days, they went from being featherless to fully covered.

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The babies would poop within seconds of being fed so that the parents could carry the droppings away from the nest. Their poop comes neatly packaged in a mucous membrane called a fecal sac. Kind of like a biodegradable diaper.

To keep the nest clean, the parents would either carry the sac away or eat it. That might sound gross but nestlings cannot completely digest the food that they eat. By eating it the parents get more nutrition. They are frantically feeding the babies all day long so they need all the nutrition they can get.

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Nine days from when I saw the featherless nestlings the first one got up on the side of the nest, started flapping its wings and to my surprise took off. It landed in a nearby tree.

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The next day the other three nestlings left the nest and landed in a pine that was close by.

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The babies would call for the parents and the feeding continued as the babies moved from tree to tree. It was a cool experience to be able to observe their growth. I had set up a blind so as not to disturb them. They acted like I wasn’t even there.

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