Summer Garden 2006 (for those of you not on Myspace)

Top to bottom: Vinca, Hibiscus, Handel Rose, Sunflower and a nest of 3 baby Robbins who were being raised by a pair of catbirds and the one mother Robbin. We spoke w/the Audubon and they said that it is very rare for one species of bird to allow another to help it raise its young. Most likely what happened was that the cat birds lost their clutch and the mother Robbin took over their nest, not having a mate the mother allowed the cat birds, (who would have still been instinctively driven to raise a clutch) help her. It really was an amazing thing to watch. Unfortunately, the picture does not do it justice, but I sat every evening and a lot of mornings just watching them w/the binoculars. You could see the cat birds bringing them these big green worms and the mother Robbin sitting on them to keep them warm, you could watch them as their feathers changed and finally as they one by one every couple of days got big enough to hop/fall out of the nest and start to fly. Once they were all out of the nest they moved further into the woods, but would come out in the mornings and evenings as a family to eat bugs and worms.