I’m not a bird watcher. Although there was a time when I did spend some time frowning at a beautiful red Cardinal as she preened herself in the side view mirror of my new little convertible–and left deposits! But most of my hobbies are indoor ones–eating, cooking, reading, writing, teaching. Oh–and watching TV and sleeping. The last may be my favorite, depending… I’m not even a gardener although I’ve made a few abortive attempts.

But lately, there’s a certain bird I’m watching very carefully. Every day. I may be becoming obsessed with her. She’s a Robin who’s built her nest in what I believe to be a very precarious spot. It’s tucked into the small space between my front porch light and the wall of my house. I can see her through the etched glass in my front door. And when I check on her, which I do more and more frequently, I think she can see me too.

Since my office is right next to my front porch, I can hear her every day through the wall. She makes a kind of croaking/burrowing sound. Curiosity had me making several Commando-like approaches to my front door to investigate. I finally caught her in the act of sharpening her beak on the wrought iron top of my porch light.

Strange.

Sometimes, I’ve caught her just sitting there with her beak open and no sound is coming out. At least no sound that I can hear.

The whole nest making process took some time. Initially, there were two Robins working on it. Their first attempt fell off the porch light. The chattering I heard through the wall of my office alerted me to the event. When I looked through my front door, I saw this pile of long dried grasses, twigs, and other unidentifiable debris littering my front porch. The two birds stood in the center of it chattering away at each other. I went back to work thinking that they would seek a safer place to rebuild.

They didn’t. The second nest took about a week to create. She did most of the work while he perched on the overhang of my garage giving instructions and critiquing her efforts. (So typical, I thought.) The end result looks like a Martha Stewart creation gone very bad.

But they evidently were satisfied. It’s been about three weeks since they completed the nest. She wasn’t in it very much at first, but for the last two weeks, she’s seldom absent. When I came back from a weekend trip on June 20th and my son carried my suitcase to the front door, she flew to the driveway across the street and yelled at him. When he came to visit mid-week, she flew to the overhang of my neighbor’s roof and refrained from commenting. (He did tell her that everything was all right.) Last night we celebrated my youngest son’s birthday, and she stayed right in the nest while company came and went.

She seems to be getting comfortable with us. She’s in her nest right now. I’ve checked on her three or four times since I’ve started writing this. I have no idea how long she’ll be there–or whether or not she’s laid any eggs yet. Nor do I know how long the little ones will stay in the nest–or how that will work out.

What I do know is that I’ll miss her when she’s gone. Maybe it’s because I’m a mother too.

Does anyone have any interesting bird or animal stories to tell? Or does anyone have any information on how long a siege I’m in for? I’m hoping that this doesn’t turn into an Alfred Hitchcock experience.

I’m offering a free book for the most interesting story and also a free book for the most helpful advice. The winners can choose from my latest Forbidden Fantasy trilogy (“Led Into Temptation,” “Taken Beyond Temptation,” or “Twice the Temptation”). Or a choice from any book on my backlist.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 29th, 2010 at 6:00 am and is filed under Cara Summers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.