A Solstice Gift

On Thursday they were gone. The small babies chirping their hunger. The two parents, ferrying food back and forth.

For two months they had kept us company, first the nest building, then the patient wait, followed by the babies who grew impossibly fast until a few short weeks later they stood on the edge of the nest, eager to fly. And then they were gone.

The first time the pair of robins tried to build the nest it fell apart. The second time perhaps they understood the engineering better.

The female robin settled in. Although it was too high for us to see the eggs we knew they were there, and we admired her patience through the long days and nights of incubation.

Three weeks later two babies looked out of the nest for the first time.

And then there were three.

I remember when my children were little, and looking to me for food and protection.

For a week the two adults repeatedly flew into the garden and then back to the nest, and the babies grew at an astounding rate.

Ready to fledge, only two weeks later.