A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion Hobbies, Crafts and Creativity The Bird Lovers Forum What happened to the babies??

I found a robin's nest in my rhododendron last week. There were two lil babies in it and the parent's kept going in there with worms. They would yell at me and swoop if I got too close. They were brand new babies, still with tiny baby feathers and they could barely lift their heads up and didn't cry all the time , like bigger, hungrier babies do. Today I went to check on them and they are GONE!!! It was too soon and I know they weren't big enough to fly yet. What could have happened to them????

the snake got them.

I think you may be right Sheri. I didn't think I had snakes big enough to eat two baby robins, eeekkkkkkk, it gives me the creeps just thinking about it.

Here's the empty nest, poor lil things.....

"I" et 'em.

You never know though Mel. We had a nest in our outside building with 3 eggs in it. We couldn't figure out how the mother got in and out to build the nest. We never saw her. Then we decided she must have been killed somehow because we started watching the building and never saw her sitting on the nest. The other day Johnny was in the building and was going to throw the nest out and the eggs were gone but there were feathers left behind. So our babies must have hatched.

Maybe it was long enough for your robins to fly away.

Some baby birds mature VERY fast. Eastern bluebirds (As do ALL birds) lay one egg a day for 4 or 5 days. The Mother then incubates them for 5 days and they hatch. After 13 more days they babies have fledged and have learned to fly and then leave the nest box. Momma bluebird often relines the same nest box with a new layer of grass and starts on her second batch of eggs. All the new babies stick around with dad and when the SECOND batch hatch, they help mom and dad feed the NEW babies. A female bluebird often produces 4 batches of young each season. I saw a pair of bluebirds across the street from my house around Easter of this year. I went back YESTERDAY and counted about SIX! Mom and Dad have been busy!