On Fri, 15 Aug 2003 08:24:04 GMT, hrafndot
wrote:

~Our robins are still gorging mealworms. They have brought baby to see
~us (actually, they seem to be training him to feed homself) and he is
~skittering around nervously.
My local pair's youngster was sitting on the fence a few weeks ago
looking half-mottled and half into real feathers. Cute.

~
~I have told Brian not to look at them in the eye cause they don't like
~it, but he disregards this because he has "a special relationship". Is
~the eye contact thing a myth?
Dunno to this one

~The mother (I think) looks very bedraggled and appears to have lost all
~her tail feathers. Is this normal, is it a moult? Or has she had a
~narrow squeak with a cat?
They moult in summer after the babies have flown the nest anyway. I
came down Friday morning to discover merry hell in the conservatory,
which I'd left open about a handswidth. Turned out to be one of the
adults - heaven knows how it got in as the gap was way narrower than a
wingspan. Had great fun and games trying to get it out of behind the
monster cucumbers and back out the door. But it was extremely
bedraggled and only just recognisable as a robin - the vaguest hint of
red breast.


--
jane

Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone,
you may still exist but you have ceased to live.
Mark Twain

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