Feed Me Feed Me : Watching a Family of Robins

I recently got a new telephoto lens and on Sunday I was treated to the perfect scenario in which to try it out. All afternoon, there were two juvenile robins perched in our tree with an adult popping in now and again to feed them.

‘Juvenile’ is apparently the proper term to use for these young birds who, based on my research, were 13 to 15 days old. You can see the tiny down feathers still attached to their heads! Robins of this age have speckled breasts while, as everyone knows, adult robins have their beautiful orange breasts. What I didn’t realize until I looked into it was that both male and female adult robins have that bright orange breast, unlike other bird species where the male is brightly coloured and the female more muted. This being so, I don’t know if it was the mother or the father who was feeding these youngsters.

Their routine went on all afternoon long, with the younger ones sitting in the tree, apart from one another, and occasionally giving out a little peep. Then suddenly, with a flurry of activity, the parent would fly in with some food for one of them, dropping a worm into it’s chirping open beak. Then after a very brief rest it would fly far away again, returning about 20 minutes later with food for the other baby. It think there were also babies in other trees in the area which the adult was also taking care of. And maybe there were two adults; it was hard to tell.

I was able to get good photos of the babies while they were patiently waiting for their food, but the speed with which the feeding transaction went made it difficult to get a good clear shot of the parent with the food and doing the actual feeding. I thought that I’d be able to get some better pictures the following day, but alas, it seems this robin family has moved into another free in the area. In fact I know they have because I can hear the occasional peep of the young robins coming from down the lane, as they await their next mouthful.

At one point I watched as one of the juveniles found itself an insect, however it couldn’t figure out how to get it from the tip of its beak into its mouth and ended up dropping the snack.

Thanks for checking out my post. I hope your day is going well. All is fine in my neck of the woods.
xo loulou

[Note: I have cropped these pictures using Photoshop to give a more close-up view. The lens I used is a 55-250 mm on a Canon Rebel body]

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