When the Red, Red robin comes home to roost

The robins are back!

This is the third year in a row that a robin family has nested on the unused alarm on our front porch. We have a couple of key pads in the wall, so the house was at some point alarmed. The box on the front porch is, I believe, a siren of some kind that would have, at some point, started making a screaming noise if the house was broken into. Two years ago, a robin mama made a nest on top of the box, which is about a foot long and eight inches wide. That nest, during the horrible winter, fell off. But the next year another robin (or maybe the same one, who knows?) built another nest there. It survived both the mild winter and a power washing of the house. So it was, move in ready for the robin this year (same one???).

Whenever I go out I look up at the bird in the nest and say, "Hello, Mama Bird". Papa Bird is often in a tree in the front yard and yells at me until I leave the porch.

I was so joyful when I saw her there. It has been such a wonder to have three broods of robins (one the first year, two last year) come into life on our porch.

Mama just eyes me. She doesn't fly away when I come out, maybe because she is (wonder of wonder) the same robin from before and has a bird memory of me--that I am harmless and won't hurt her. Papa Robin looks like the one from the last two years--a really big Robin he is, and fierce.

I am so happy they are here (or back again, whichever). Spring arrives for me when the robin is in the nest....