There's a Nest Outside Our Backdoor!!

[Toba]

This happened once before YEARS ago. It was a particularly rainy day and neither of us were paying much attention to what was going on (at the time, we had French doors with curtains covering them). We missed it the first few times we let the dogs out. When we finally did notice it later that night, it was already built on our backdoor light fixture. We tried to leave it alone ... although DH took a stool out there to take a picture (the parents weren't around). Three blue eggs, they were so beautiful. Only one hatched into a VERY ugly bird. We kept an eye on it for a while and then one day, the baby bird was gone (way too early to fly) and the parents had abandoned the nest with the remaining two blue eggs. We left it there for a week or two and then finally discarded it. It was a *really* bad place for a nest.

Now we have a sliding glass door with no curtains ... and only one dog that doesn't require so many trips to the bathroom. It was rainy the past few days and now that I think about it, I do remember some fluttering outside the door yesterday (my part of the couch is about two feet from the sliding glass door), but I just figured it was leaves or whatever blowing in the rain/wind.

DH just let the dog out and there's the nest in the exact same spot. Right this moment, there's a red robin sitting in the nest ... I can see her perfectly. I don't want to disrupt her or the eggs (if there are eggs in there already), but we still need to let the dog out and sometimes with that light fixture on. I would *love* for DS to witness this, but should I just leave it alone? I don't want the bird to abandon her eggs when she figures out it's a door we use frequently ....

[Melaine]

I don't know what to tell you. I'm very excited though, that we have a nest by our house with three little baby birds in it. It is low enough for the girls to see when I pick them up. We haven't gotten very close, but it is sweet to see their little beaks chirping for food!

[Toba]

I just realized that we could probably look down onto the nest from the second floor. The only problem is that the windows have full screens, so I can't just open it ... it has to be popped out. She's definitely still actively building the nest because we can see her flying back and forth with twigs and stuff in her beak, so I'm guessing no eggs yet anyway.

Probably about five or six years ago, I let the dogs out and they were scrambling all over the place (they are bird dogs, after all LOL) and I heard high pitched screaming. Then I saw two blue jays dive bombing my dogs. I ran out there in my pajamas. Neither dog had their collar on (my fault) and it was impossible to corral them back into the house. Meanwhile, now I'm getting dive bombed. Somehow we all ended up in the front yard and I spotted a planted pot. I put the pot over top of the bird (it was GORGEOUS and could just get air under it but not actually fly) and literally dragged the dogs back into the house. Then I had to go back out and take the pot off the baby bird, again while being dive bombed. Our next door neighbor was watching her grandkids and I called the little girl over and showed her the baby bird which had gotten into a small bush (you could tell it was scared as heck). I'm guessing that family of blue jays never came back into our yard again. LOL

[BabyMine]

I know it would be a pain but could you take the dogs aout your front door and then to the back? That is so cool to have the nest that close. The only dealing I have with a bird is when one flew into our back window. I thought it was dead and picked it up and put it in a shoe box in the house. A couple seconds later I see it flying around our house.

[Toba]

I just read up a little bit about them and it says that it's common for them to nest within close proximity to human habitations. They even showed a nest on a light fixture!! I'm so excited!

[Uno-Mom]

We had a nest over our back door when I was little. It was awesome! Babies hatched and everything.

The only problem was that mamma bird decided she needed to protect the nest every time we used the door. So, we got dive-bombed an awful lot. Oh, and the poop.

[SkyrMommy]

We've had robins nesting on both our covered front porch as well as our carport and neither have abandoned their nests because of our coming and goings... although I've been dive bombed by the mother more times that I can count going in and out! :rotflmao:

We currently have a robin starting a nest on the front porch and a phoebe coming back to nest on a back light fixture that's under cover. It's really cool to watch the stages of the birds and then finally see the little ones go. We just knock the nests down in the winter and powerwash any remaining mess away.

You might want to leave the nest for a bit after the first eggs and babies though, most birds will have a second brood in the same nest or area.

[trales]

We had a nest of pheobes on the front light last year. We used the door, the light, watched them hatch grow and take flight. It was great.

We had dogs, light and a front door and 4 little birds flew away after growing up in our little next.

[Babymakes3]

We have a little holly tree at the end of our front walk where the walk turns to go to the driveway and we had a nest in it last year. After the babies hatched mama bird was SOOO protective! Anytime we would walk out our front door she would fly into us, mainly with her wings hitting our shoulders or heads. I had to start using the garage door instead because I was afraid the bird would attack us! Just be careful!