New Bird Friends---The Robin Family

   As much as everyone in the UK craves for the sun and warmth, you will not hear me complaining about the English weather anytime soon.  The most annoying thing about living in HK for me was the fact that I was rarely able to work in the garden for more than an hour without getting heatstroke or being bitten by thousands of mosquitoes and other insects. At the moment, I am so glad that they are a thing of the past.

   One huge reward of working in the garden for me is the company of birds. You can imagine my delight when I discovered that a family of robins have been living in my garden for sometime.

  Mum and dad kept an eye on me at first, observing me from the garden fences. 

Then they began to follow me around looking for worms and insects.

Sometimes they got really close and didn’t mind the camera at all.

I wondered if they’ve had any chicks but decided not to investigate. I could not believe my luck, when one morning, one parent (possibly the dad)  brought his fledglings to meet me!

  After several attempts, I managed to get a couple of photos of them together.

  The colours of the fledglings feather are so well camouflaged that they are very difficult to spot.

   Soon the fledglings started following me while the parent was watching.

 

A few days ago, all of them disappeared from the garden for good. I wish them all the best and hope they will come back next year~

 

My neighbours--A Pair of Nesting Red-Whiskered Bulbuls (3)

The parents continued to bring home delicious insects everyday for the next few days.

 

 

Although the chicks were getting bigger, I noticed that they spent most of the time sleeping and were not very alert even at feeding times.  The chicks did not look well to me at all.

A couple of days later, when I woke up one morning, there were only two babies in the nest.  One of the nestlings had disappeared over night.

By now, the two remaining nestlings looked unwell too. They didn’t seem to have the energy to take food from their parents.

The following morning, I was so sad to see that another chick was gone. The remaining chick spent the whole day sleeping.

Next morning, I got up early and sadly, the nest was empty. I saw the mother’s grieving face for the last time. 

I suspect that the nestlings may have died and been removed by the mother overnight, one by one.  After checking online, I found that this kind of behaviour has been documented previously. http://www.birdchick.com/wp/2009/04/interesting-stuff-at-the-nest-cam-site/