Day 3 and another chilly, damp day for the baby robins. The mother stayed on the nest most of the day. I checked them in the morning (sleepy heads) and at dusk (sort of hungry, but mostly sleepy). This group seems to be developing slower than last year’s.
Day 2. I was able to see all four baby robins, but they are really very snuggled together. Today was chilly and rainy. I expected to see them eating today, but mostly they slept. I try to only look in the nest in the morning and night so that they are not disturbed too much, but really, every time someone leaves the house, the mother flies to the nearby tree and leaves the nest for a few minutes.
Here’s the honeysuckle vine on our front porch. Can you find the nest?
Look closely and you will see the mother bird’s beak. She’s done a terrific job keeping the warm and dry this weekend.
Eye slits are starting to form. They will continue to spread across the eye before they are able to open.
Four sleepyheads. Look at that baby chicken neck!
If you look close, you can see the beginnings of where the feathers will start to emerge.
Not as sharp as I would like, but this closeup of the down shows off the tiny spurs that hold air.
We have baby robins again this year! Last year I documented the 12 days of their development from hatching to leaving the nest. You can look through the archive here (reverse order of date, so scroll down to see the earlier images).
Four robin eggs in nest. The nest is built in our honeysuckle vines on our front porch.
Baby robins Day 1! Hatched on Sunday, April 28th. So far 3 of the 4 eggs have hatched. Last year they hatched on April 27th!
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If you know me, you know I love tiny things. This little silver kaleidoscope was a gift and it is a treasure. It has real glass & gem pieces that create the delicate, colorful images which are amazing when you consider that the diameter of the kaleidoscope is only 4mm. But you don’t have to take my word for it, take a look yourself (via my iPhone!).
No snow to photograph in NC this week, so I’m turning my easy-macro lens on a feather in my office.
It’s amazing how much detail you can see when you look closely! It looks like we have some birds trying to build a nest near our porch again. If so, we’ll try to follow them as they lay eggs and hatch the baby birds (see last year’s robins).
Recently Bora interviewed me and he was able to extract some fun facts about my growing up years. Yikes. You can read the interview on either the ScienceOnline site or on Bora’s Scientific American blog, A Blog Around the Clock.
Earlier this month I had another chance to try my hand at photographing snow crystals with my iPhone and a macro lens. I’ve tried several iPhone macro lens attachments, but I have to say I’ve had the best success with the very simple Easy-Macro Lens. It’s basically a special rubber band with a lens embedded in it. This means the lens can be used with any smartphone… and even my iPad. So, on to the results!
These are the snow crystals from my visit to Ithaca, NY at the end of December (2012). I used a black scarf to collect the falling crystals, then I moved into an open bay of the garage (cold, but no more snow falling on me). I identified snow crystals that seemed like good candidates, then got my iPhone and lens REAL close. I had forgotten my tripod, so I steadied the phone with a box.
Pretty cool, huh?
(Next time it snows, I’m set. I’ve got my lens, my tripod ready, and some pretty amazing crystal micro-mounts from my brother-in-law Rob)
Perrin Ireland (@experrinment) did an awesome job (as usual!) visually capturing and distilling the content from many sessions of the NASW Science Writers2012 conference and CASW’s New Horizons sessions. Enjoy!
Apparently I was busy tweeting at ScienceWriters2012. We had a great conference and I was thrilled to be able to be on a panel about measuring the impact of social media. Here’s a great example!
