Ko bin's West 



My favorite among the many nests built in my old apple tree is 

 the robin's a bowl of mud, reinforced with twigs, string and paper. 



This spring I watched a mother robin building her home. In 

 fact, I helped her build it by furnishing her with some string and 

 paper scraps. And she had a choice of mud from my fields. The 

 pert young lady seemed pleased with my gifts, and let me observe 

 her at work during five days of patient carting and constructing. 



Straw and string and scraps of paper were used to form a bowl- 

 shaped nest on a branch. This part of the task consumed two days. 

 Then she plastered the inside with mud carried pellet by pellet to 

 the nest in her beak third day. Now she shaped the nest by sitting 

 in it, hopping and flapping and moving about, pushing the wall into 

 shape with her breast and wings. Finally fourth and fifth days she 

 lined it with dried grass. 



Later I saw the four eggs she laid there; they were, of course, 

 robin's egg blue, and this greenish-blue was opalescent against the 

 background of pink and white apple-blossoms. Another few days 

 passed; the petals fell and here were four baby robins, well fed on 

 caterpillars and bugs and worms, crowding the nest to overflowing. 

 A young robin has a speckled breast, as you see in the picture. Nature 

 provides this protective coloring while the robin is young and can- 

 not fly from its enemies. The robin's spectacular red vest is a badge 

 of maturity. 



Occasionally, the mother robin would fly to this nest with a nice 

 red cherry for dessert. Robins like cherries, either wild or cultivated, 

 and that's why some people make sporadic efforts to frighten them 

 away. But no one wants to keep the robins away for long. 



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