Yesterday (Saturday) provided another encounter with the brood of robins that hatched under our back deck. In case you lost track, here's a rundown of the current statisctics: 1)
four birds hatched two weeks ago, 2)
the first one to leave the nest got mauled by Bailey (the Wonder Dog) on Thursday, 3)
I saw the second bird fly out of our yard later Thursday evening, 4)
Wonder Dog struck again on Friday and mauled the third fledgling in the middle of a thunderstorm, and 4) the fourth bird is no longer in the nest...I have no idea what happened to it.
Since all four of the fledgling birds have now left the nest and are either dead or flying, Missesmagette and I feel a little more comfortable about letting BTWD into the back yard...but we always go out first to make sure the coast is clear before letting her out. Typically, if the family of robins is around, Momma robin will start making her alarm call as soon as we're outside. If we hear that, then we know that at least one of the juveniles is in the area, and we'll keep Bailey on leash. If we don't hear it, then we assume that all is well and Bailey can go about her business untethered.
Yesterday I spent a couple of minutes on the deck and didn't hear anything, so we let the dog out.* Bailey hadn't gotten halfway across the yard when Momma robin suddenly showed up and started making her noise. Crap. Now there's 80 pounds of black dog in the yard with a pound or two of defenseless bird. But something funny happened...when Momma robin showed up, Bailey (the Wonder Dog) actually COWERED under the deck. My dog has actually learned to be afraid of a bird. I have to admit, there's that "manly" part of me that's embarrassed for my wimpy dog. But most of me is a little relieved that maybe she's starting to learn her lesson about eating poor defenseless creatures that show up in our yard.**
I still took a quick survey of the back yard to make sure there were no baby robins within her reach, just in case her courage returned, her instincts kicked back in, or both. I was rewarded with this:
There, perched in the maple tree next to our deck was one of the juveniles. Now I don't have any way of knowing if this is the bird that I saw leaving the yard, or if it's the 4th one that I wasn't able to account for. But whichever one it was, I'm grateful that it came back to spend a few minutes with us.
*So, to answer that age old question of "Who let the dog out?...it was me.
**GREAT story about a baby opossum that she got a hold of once. Good times with that one...Sunday update: The birds weren't around nearly as much today. I did see Momma robin several times, and heard her several more, but never saw the juvenile again. At one point I thought I caught him flying back into his favorite maple tree out of the corner of my eye. I looked and looked*** but couldn't see anything to confirm whether it actually was the little robin or not. The little buggers sure are camouflaged well.
***I can only spend so much time starting up into trees before Littlemagette starts to worry that his daddy's gone off the deep end, or Missesmagette starts to make comments about me becoming "Tarzan of the Birds".
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Missesmagette found this little guy hiding in our daylillies this afternoon. There are two species of gray tree frogs found in this area, the common gray tree frog, Hyla versicolor, and the southern (or "Cope's") gray tree frog, Hyla chrysoscelis. These two species appear identical except for their calls. Interestingly, Hyla versicolor is a tetraploid species, meaning that it has 4 sets of chromosomes as an adult (most vertebrates only have two sets of chromosomes and are referred to as "diploid"). Both of these closely related species can change colors to blend into their environment, which is why this little guy is such a pretty green.
There, perched in the maple tree next to our deck was one of the juveniles. Now I don't have any way of knowing if this is the bird that I saw leaving the yard, or if it's the 4th one that I wasn't able to account for. But whichever one it was, I'm grateful that it came back to spend a few minutes with us. 
