The Early Bird Catches the Worm –
The story of the ‘Fruit Market Robins’

Of all the garden bird species that people know and love, the Robin is certainly the favourite. Male and female Robins look identical but if the bird is singing it will be the male bird…in the world of birds it is usually only the male that sings.

In fact Robins are one of the few birds to sing during the winter months. Robins are also renowned for the strange and unusual places they choose to nest. They can often use old kettles, wash bags in bathrooms or shelves in garages. Robins usually begin to build their nests from late March onwards but usually don’t begin to lay eggs until mid to late April.

So, when we at the Mooney show got a call from Denise Clarke from the Dublin Corporation Fruit & Food Market telling us that she and her assistant, Linda Healy, believed they had a Robin sitting on eggs on 9th Feb, we had to find out more. Surely a Robin can’t be nesting two months ahead of time? But sure enough, when we visited on 10th Feb, the female bird (it is the female that does the incubation) was sitting on five eggs. This is the amazing story of the ‘Fruit Market Robins’ so far…

Mid-January: The Robins choose to start building a nest among small ornamental firs on a trolley beside Denise’s wholesale plant and flower stall in the market. The nest is made of grasses and lined with moss…the flower and plant stall is a perfect place to find nesting material.

Jan 28th to Feb 2nd: She begins to lay the first egg. Robins lay an egg each day and do not begin to incubate the eggs until the last one is laid. This ensures that all the eggs will hatch out on the same day (this is called synchronous hatching). She lays a total of five eggs and it will take 13 to 14 days to incubate the eggs

Feb 2nd to Feb 16th: The female does all of the incubation of the eggs and throughout this two week period sits tight on the nest, keeping the eggs warm. She will leave occasionally to find food but always returns quickly back to the nest.

Feb 16th: Denise and Linda notice more activity around the nest and discover that, by early morning, three of the five eggs have hatched. The ‘Fruit Market Robins’ have a family. Food is of course a big problem…nesting in Feb means that it is impossible for the adults to find enough food to feed their young. Robin chicks need lots of greenflies, caterpillars and insect larvae in order to survive. This is of course why Robins don’t usually raise young until at least April. Are these birds raising young for the first time? What prompted them to nest so early? How will they find enough food? Thankfully a local fishing and tackle shop has a plentiful supply of bait (live worms) and Denise and Linda start to put this food out for the birds. The parents take to this immediately and begin to feed the chicks (and themselves) with this high-energy food. The normal period that young Robins stay in the nest is about 14 days so if all goes well, these chicks will be ready to leave the nest by 1st or 2nd March.

Feb 18th: The birds are doing well but it seems that two of the eggs did not hatch out…the eggs are still in the nest. They may have been infertile and will be removed shortly. The pair is feeding the young birds and the female is spending lots of time keeping the chicks warm. Young Robins are hatched without feathers and need to be kept warm until they grow their first set of feathers (down feathers which are designed to keep them warm).

Feb 19th: late yesterday afternoon it was discovered that a fourth chick had hatched. Up to the morning, only three chicks were present with two unhatched eggs. As the three chicks had hatched on 16th, it was assumed that the remaining two eggs were most likely infertile. Robins begin incubation of the eggs when the last one is laid so normally all the eggs hatch out together. For one egg to hatch two days after the rest is most unusual indeed but it seems our 'Fruit Market Robins' are breaking all the rules. This also means that this fourth chick will be two days behind in his/her growing and feather growth. Thanksfully all four chicks are still doing well. The last egg remains unhatched and I think is most likely infertile but given the surprises these birds keep throwing up...who knows?





Feb 20th: All four chicks are still doing well. The fifth egg still has not hatched so it seems that it is infertile....unless of course the Robins spring one more surprise over the weekend. The female is still spending lots of time brooding the young birds to keep them warm.

Feb 23rd: All four chicks are still doing fine. Food was left for the pair over the weekend and this morning the female was sitting on the feeding bowl waiting for Denise and Linda to arrive. There were no surprises over the weekend...there are still four chicks in the nest. At this stage, three of the birds are now 8 days old (the fourth is 6 days old). By now, they will have grown their down feathers (which is the first set of feathers designed to keep the birds warm) and their first real set of feathers will begin to show. As a result the female Robin does not need to spend as much time keeping them warm. She can now concentrate on finding food for them...which because of the great work done by Denise and Linda, is not too difficult a task.

Feb 24th – 25th: All four chicks are now growing at an enormous rate. When they were hatched they weighed just 2 grams…by the time they leave the nest they will 20 grams. That means these little chicks will put on ten times their body weight in just two weeks. At this stage the young birds are too big for the female Robin to brood them. It is also a very critical time for the young birds. As they grow, they need more and more food and become ever more demanding on the parents. Many young birds die in the latter half of the their second week as food resources in the wild dictate their success or otherwise. Again, these young birds don’t just have good attentive parents but also have great friends in Denise and Linda who continue to supply the family with a constant ‘takeaway’ of live bait!

Feb 26th – 27th: The birds are still doing very well on their diet of live bait supplied by Denise and Linda. In fact they’re growing so fast Linda reckons that at this rate they’ll be as ‘big as pigeons before the week is out!’ The birds are now a very tight squeeze in the nest and over the next day or two will be begin to exercise their wings in readiness for their first flight. The nest is getting a little bit tatty now but is still reasonably clean. On almost every visit the parents are now removing faecal sacks from the nest.

When a chick wants to ‘deposit a dropping’, it is presented to the adult in a small, thin membrane (a faecal sack) which the parent then brings away from the nest and disposes of it well away from the area. This keeps the nest clean and, for birds that nest out in the open, also keeps the nest well camouflaged. Three of the young birds are now 12 days old (one is two days younger). On average young birds stay in the nest for 13-15 days so these birds may leave the nest over the weekend or by Monday. Will the youngest bird stay for an extra day or two? Only time will tell.

28th Feb - Tragedy struck this morning. When Denise and Linda arrived they found just three chicks in the nest and one dead chick on the ground beneath the nest site. We are not sure what happened to this chick but it seemed like it was smaller than the other three and, most likely was the last chick to hatch. Robins normally hatch out eggs all on the same day and thus all the young are the same age. This pair hatched a fourth egg two days after the others.

As I have said, these last few days are often the most crucial. With more demand on the parents to feed ever-growing young, any bird that is smaller than the others often does not get its fair share. As it becomes weaker, it begs less and gets even less food. I think that this what happened to this chick. If it dies it will then be removed from the nest. However, the other three are still doing well against all the odds. I have said at the outset that Mon 2nd March will be the day they will leave the nest. With the market closed tomorrow, we will only know it that happens on Monday.

2nd March - D-day for our chicks. When Denise and Linda arrived, all three chicks were still in the nest. However, shortly after daylight, the parents became very active and suddenly one of the chicks fluttered from the nest and was on the ground. With an adult it left the market and went outside. This was quickly followed by the second chick and before long, the third and final chick was gone.

The nest is now empty and the three young birds begin their real adventure in life. These Robins have defied all the odds and raised three chciks two months ahead of other birds. It has been a most unusual nesting and, thanks to Denise, Linda and everyone in the market for sharing this wonderful story with us.