And here's to you, Mrs. Robin.

If you've been following Nature Blog here, you know that I have a robin's nest under my deck (deck, that is, not desk) (although that would be interesting) that has a robin that flees whenever I or the dog draws near. Until recently it also had a bright blue egg. Now:

That little spike was twitching around, and I'm pretty certain it was the beak of a baby robin, waiting for Mom to come back and hurl some lunch into it.

Congratulations, Mrs. Robin! It's a... robin!

I knew something was up because there were at least two angry robins peeping at me when I took that picture, and boy were they mad. Got to protect the baby!

I think the robins may also be a little on edge because this nest is right near the A/C unit. Maybe that thing going on and off has made them a little deranged. Poor robins! Oh, well, they should have built next door. The neighbor's unit is around the corner from their deck.

On the topic of nature: You may also recall that I have a 15-year-old azalea that I was pretty sure had croaked during our second consecutive brutal winter. Well:

He showed me! Well played, azalea! There wasn't a lot of flowering this year, but there sure as heck been a lot of leafing. So good job!

And that's our nature report today, except for this guy:

You'd better believe the dog was fascinated by this interloper. He wanted to go nose-to-nose with him, And although he has a hundred pounds on the turtle, I knew he would keep at it until we had to make a trip to the vet with a nipped and bleeding nose. Seemed that Shelly here was trying to get across the street for mating purposes (not mating porpoises, which would be ridiculous) (but interesting). Once I got the dog away, I shoveled up Shelly and deposited him across the street. I didn't want him getting run over along the way either. Turtle Pancake would have also attracted the dog.

So that's your suburban nature update for the week. Back inside to the A/C!

UPDATE: Baby bird? Looks kind of big. Maybe they brought in a babysitter.