Robins May 19, 2012

All four chicks have hatched.
Everything is going well. The parent robins accept our presence, perhaps thinking of us as large, lumbering beings of the urban forest, unpredictable, but with hearts in the right place, so that there is no need to fear us.
There is still plenty of need to put us into our places, as for example when we furtively try to water some plants on the balcony. I have visions of them looking at me like those films of "smart bombs" during Desert Storm, sort of a fly-by with a sudden zeroing in on some bald pate Saddam!
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Robins May 18 2012

The four robin eggs have hatched, and four fuzz-balls with beaks have emerged. My wife exhibits more and more ornithological lore every day, as if she were channeling John James Audubon. I look at her with surprise. The pansies in whose midst the nest is situated need water, but this is not the time to intrude. Robins have been known to attack Nosey-Parkers with their beaks, and beaks are lethal if you give them a hundred meters of clearance to get up a head of steam.

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