Robin Builds Nest In Ornamental Wreath—

A Realistic Touch To Home Decorations

By Kendra Bobowick

Pat Hammalian was curious about the straw she found littering her front porch.

“What is all that on the deck?” she had wondered. “So, I brushed it off,” she said. The next day, she swept her deck again.

Ms Hammalian noticed the debris several days after hanging a decorative summer wreath in her front entrance. Looking more closely, she soon understood who was making the little mess on her stoop.

“I saw that on the side of the wreath was a perfectly formed robin’s nest. So, now we don’t use the front door because she spooks!” she said. Her new live-in robin is preparing for a family, but as of May 7, no eggs were in the nest, just mom. By May 10 the robin flitted from her nest to railing to tree branch to lawn and back with a beak filled with clumps of grass. Had she pulled a worm from the lawn?

A caterpillar inched along a long piece of straw jutting from the wreath and crawled past her line of sight, but was overlooked as supper.

“She is cute as a devil, waiting on this empty nest,” Ms Hammalian said.

With the help of an elevated camera angle, the lens captured tufts of fuzz inside the nest. Has the mother lined the straw and twig bed for her babies, or have they hatched?

Ms Hammalian has not seen eggs or cracked blue shells on the ground, but she is waiting for babies to arrive. “A little family” will soon fill the weave of straw, grass, and twigs forming the robin’s nest.

According to AllAboutBirds.com, the female American robin, also the Connecticut state bird, is crafty with her building materials. “Females build the nest from the inside out, pressing dead grass and twigs into a cup shape using the wrist of one wing. Other materials include paper, feathers, rootlets, or moss in addition to grass and twigs. Once the cup is formed, she reinforces the nest using soft mud gathered from worm castings to make a heavy, sturdy nest. She then lines the nest with fine dry grass. The finished nest is 6–8 inches across and 3–6 inches high.”

The nest in Ms Hammalian’s wreath was roughly the size of hands cupped together.

The website also describes nesting locations: “Typically on one or several horizontal branches hidden in or just below a layer of dense leaves. Nests are typically in the lower half of a tree, although they can be built as high as the treetop. American robins also nest in gutters, eaves, on outdoor light fixtures, and other structures.”