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On Saturday morning, Max and I decided to attack the mess that was the base of the ginormous pine tree in our front yard. We've been intending to do this since late spring last year and just never got around to it. Well, we finally rolled up our sleeves and went to work. While Max started slicing off branches with his chainsaw, I planted a few flowers in the raised beds in our front yard and then had my little manservant (aka Hudson) go and fetch the camera so I could take a few "before" pictures of the tree. Want to see them? Too bad...those will come in a later post.

After finishing my planting and expert photography, I stuck Claire in her stroller in the shade, pulled on my hand-saving gloves, and started pulling branches into the street. A short while later, Max summoned me over to the large branch that he had just sawed off and pointed towards the middle of it...

There sat an absolutely beautiful, perfect, and very empty nest. I carefully pulled it off the branch (it was glued on with mud) and then Hudson and I marveled at the most amazing workmanship. Not only was there mud on the bottom, there was very pretty mud "trim" surrounding the center of the nest. It was made entirely of this mud and a few different types of grasses or plants. There were large hula skirt grass-like strands on the outside and finer thread like stands on the inside. It was completely firm with the center bowl being solid with mud but soft and comfy for baby birds as it was carefully lined with the grasses. After we examined this masterpiece, I set it in the grass several feet away so it wouldn't be harmed. Then it was back to work.

As we continued working, we discovered another nest in the tree. It was up higher, resting on a branch that was to stay attached to the tree. A short while later, we noticed a male robin that was very curious about what we were doing. He'd land beneath the tree when we were a little ways away from it and then fly up into the branches. Then he'd take off, only to come back and watch us from a nearby tree moments later. We hoped that we hadn't removed his nest. That the nest we'd left alone was what he was guarding.

The day wore on and we kept working. After a break for lunch, we headed out to the front yard again and I went back to my job of hauling branches. As I walked up to one of the piles in the tree's large bed, I was terrified to see a beautiful little blue egg sitting at the edge of the grass. Make that Robin's Egg Blue. I immediately picked it up and looked it over. Other than one tiny scratch, it was absolutely perfect. Once again hoping that the nest remaining in the tree was where it belonged, I pulled the branch down and examined the nest in its place...totally empty and falling apart. It was an old nest. And we all know what that makes us: home wreckers.

I took the gorgeous little egg and placed it in what was once its safe home. I felt positively horrible. I must have apologized to Mr. Robin a dozen times. As I kept working, I started giving reasons why it was okay, why I'm not a baby birdy killer...

• There are blue jays in our area. If we hadn't committed this crime, a jay could have easily swept in a taken the egg.
• We would have left the branch if we had known.
• There was no evidence that the nest was new and being used (not even a single little poop!).
• It was an accident. As if we would intentionally destroy a nest!
• There was only one egg...I was saddened by the thought of the birds' loss but at least the nest wasn't chock full.

After providing myself with these justifications (which provided almost no consolation for me and certainly none for Daddy and Mommy Robin), I was feeling okay. That is, until the end of the branch-hauling when I started raking up branch fragments and the billions of pine needles beneath the tree. There, beneath a bunch of sticks were the remains of a second blue egg. Far from perfect, it had obviously been crushed by the large pile of debris that had been there. Or maybe one of us evil home wreckers stepped on it. Either way, the little blue shell pieces made me feel even worse. The only thing that made me feel a tiny bit better was the fact that what was there with the shell was only yolk and albumin. No little baby bird as far as I could tell. But those robins are now without their precious eggs.

After we had finished much of our work for the day, I placed the nest with its single egg up against the trunk of the tree, hoping that Mr. Robin would accept the gesture as an apology:

I was hoping that he'd stop searching for the nest, stop flying around, stop trying to make me feel worse than I already did. No such luck. He kept coming and going - all afternoon and evening long - even after we picked the nest up and gave it to our school teacher neighbor so she could take it to her class on Monday.

Then, to top things off, on Sunday evening, Max was in the front yard for a minute and found yet another whole egg. It was sitting on the ground, very close to where I had found the 1st intact egg on Saturday. I don't know whether Mrs. Robin sat down and laid that egg where her "hospital" should have been or if it fell from another nest or another bird's beak. But regardless of how those whole eggs ended up on the ground, we are responsible for the destruction of their intended home.

Home wreckers indeed.