a bird story

I've told my bird story to several of my friends and family, but I still think it is pretty amazing, so I'm going to tell it again.  Don't worry.  It's very short.

It starts with a robin's nest that was built in a pallet in our back yard.  I sadly did not get a picture of it... I went to take one and the birds had hatched too soon on me.  It had four eggs, and looked something like this:

link to image source

I'm not sure what day the eggs hatched (as faithfully as I tried to watch them ;)), but this picture was taken on May 7th, shortly after they were born:

Cute little things, huh?!  One week later on May 14th, I checked on the little guys again, and much to my surprise, they looked like this:

I think if I would've stood and watched them all day, they would've grown feathers before my eyes!  Who knew birds changed so fast?!  When we would walk over to look at the nest, the birds would startle and put their little heads in the air, beaks open, just hoping for food.  Sorry to disappoint.  We did catch a glimpse of the mother watching over her little ones a couple time too...

And three days later on May 17th, they had plumped up even more and were about to burst out of the nest:

And that is the last picture I captured of our little friends.  We were gone over the weekend and when we came home, the nest was on the ground empty and pallet had fallen over.  We are hoping that the birds flew away and this story did not end tragically.  There weren't any dead birds on the ground, so I'm thinking they must be ok. :)

And that's the end of the story of how amazingly fast birds grow.  It was my first and maybe last time to observe newly hatched eggs turn into little birds.  It was a fun way to kick off spring and Beck thought they were pretty neat too!