Hi all, After a hectic day in the lab I had to go and pick up my car from the Auto works. As it looked a beautiful day, I headed to lab of because I wanted to photograph Kip's barn pond with Kip's barn reflection. Unfortunately, the vision I and several artists had seen a few years ago is no more to be seen. It is over crowded by the invasive European alder around the pond! sad :-(
I was reflecting about the loss of beautiful site when I saw a female robin her mouth full of some garbage, no not actually but some stuff she had picked up from the rocks on the pond and land in a fork of the tree. Then she arranged the load in the nest and with her feet she pressed it down and rearranged a bit and flew off to get more of the same. Every time she got back she placed the material and pushed it with her feet more making a "more than foot deep" depression in the cup. While doing so she was harassed several time by the pesky Grackles. They actually came very close to the nest. Most of the time the male chased them away. Once she herself gave a chase to two of them and seemed very annoyed with them. I am not sure what the grackles were after, whether the nesting material or the spot itself as they also next in a similar location. Male watched them from a long distance and would run after the grackles if they headed towards the nest. I was glad at lest he did this. Female was very determined, in spite of several attacks she continued to fly to locations where she would collect good material needed for the nest. She raised the nest by an inch or so in half an hour. In between she would weave the long strands of plant material along the edge. I also took the video. Hopefully sometimes I will put it together It was amazing how well she worked weave the cup! I have seen many nests contain long pieces of plastic material. Some time as long as strips that are 8 to 10 inches long and two four inches wide. I was hoping to check some nests for the plastics to see how they incorporate them But alas not much time available I guess now. While watching the nest building, also heard fairly continuously Virginia rail doing its tik tik tik call and twice I heard it kidick kidick call. That was great relaxing session in the evening1 Cheers meena Meena Haribal Ithaca NY 14850 http://haribal.org/ http://meenaharibal.blogspot.com/ -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
