Now that I got that out of my system, time to return to the charm of the robins' nest. They're just about ready to fledge. It's like watching a ballet.
A few feet from this nest, in the grass there are the remains of a dead rat. I don't know how it came to be dead at that spot. When first seen it still had some flesh on its body and, of course, the long tail. That's how I could ID it. There were already flies on it and a couple of maggots at the tail joint. The next day there was no more flesh. It looked like something that had been run over by a steamroller, totally flat as paper, absorbed into the ground with lots of maggots. I wondered if the parent robin would pluck maggots to feed to the nestlings. The parents were coming right to my feet. I could see what was on the menu for the kids. I didn't see them stop to do a maggot pick-up.
There are workmen putting up scaffolding on the path. These big hulking guys are stopping to watch the robins too. It's kind of nice. They'd never seen a nest before. All their banging doesn't seem to be distressing the kids.______________________________________
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