Nesting

Birding has taken a bit of a back seat this year, as I seem simultaneously pulled in different directions while stuck in a quagmire of grief/depression that saps all motivation.  Two birds did nest in our yard for first broods.  The chipping sparrows used the furthest "dwarf" mugo pine along the end of our driveway.  Their nest would fit cupped in the palm of my hand and standing over the bush we cannot see it at all.  I haven't seen any activity this past week so I am guessing that they've fledged.  It is hard keeping track when I'm staying at my mom's a few nights a week and gone most days.  

This is a picture after last June's fledge.  I need to find pictures of these bushes when we first planted them and now.  It never ceases to amaze me how years go by and these didn't seem to grow and suddenly they are ridiculously huge and have choked out the carpet roses that I had planted in between.  We probably did the plantings fifteen or sixteen years ago.  

A pair of Robins nested in the yard this year.  A few years ago they built a nest in my dogwood.  This year they are just a few feet away from that nest location but in a branch of the one pine tree in our yard, directly over the driveway!  We probably would never have noticed the nest except the sitting parent flies off almost every time we drive in or out or walk under the nest to get the mail.  The nest is not visible from inside my house.  I have no solid report as to what is happening....if eggs have hatched, how many.  Yesterday I was able to get these pictures from the driveway.  

The nest looks a little rough after almost a week of rain. I did not do a super garden clean up last fall, so this pair used a lot of day lily remnants in the nest.  The chipping sparrows manage to pull strands from a tarp that gets left out at the end of the driveway. 

 My favorite picture is from the Robin nest a few years ago in the dogwood tree.  That pair used a large piece of birch bark in their nest construction.