The Nest

I was trying to think of something to take a picture of today for my 30 day challenge and I remembered that we found a bird making a nest in a tree in our yard a couple of weeks ago so I went to check it out. It's about seven or eight feet up in the middle of a big pine tree in our backyard, so it's not very easy to see but I could tell that there was a robin sitting in it. She promptly flew over to another tree when she saw me poking around.

It was too high for me to really see what was in the nest so I was off to find a ladder. Back when I used to do a lot of art and nature photography I used to do stuff like this all the time. I was always balancing on the top of ladders, crawling in the dirt, hanging over the side of bridges, trying to get into trees...I forgot how much I loved it. It's been ages since I got my camera out for anything other than taking pictures of the kids. I didn't realize how much I missed it until I was carrying my ladder across the yard to climb into my pine tree to look at a birds nest. It's pure bliss to me.  The sure cure for the stress in my life.

I positioned the ladder under the tree and climbed up to the top to see if I could see into the nest. It's at a really difficult angle to see though and I scratched up my hands and arms with pine needles trying to move the branches out of the way to see better. As far as I can tell I think there are four beautiful blue robbin eggs in the nest. Yay for baby birds!

I was trying to hurry because the mama bird was watching my every move and I'm sure she wasn't happy with me. I made sure not to touch the nest or get too close to it. I couldn't really get that close to it anyway. Pine trees are really hard to maneuver around without hurting yourself! I'd have no one to blame but myself if I fell off the ladder and dislocated my shoulder. :)

I didn't really get the greatest pictures, but I tried. I was balancing on the very top of the ladder while trying to hold my camera steady in one hand and trying to move branches out of the way with the other and it was tricky. I think once the babies are born I'll be able to get some pretty great pictures though. Once they're sticking their heads out of the nest I should be able to see them really well.

After taking a dozen pictures or so the mama bird started squawking at me and that was my cue to get down and leave her alone. She chewed me out all the way back to the house, lol.

I'm four days into my photo challenge and I'm remembering all the things I loved about photography. This has already been really good for me. I'm a little rusty but I'm having a lot of fun. Check back tomorrow for day five!