Feathered Friends

Just outside my lounge window, I have a very old winter jasmine bush growing against the kitchen wall. It's dense, about a foot to eighteen inches thick, and this year - I have a robin nesting in it!

We've tried to catch some of her activity on our birdcam, but for some reason we can't seem to capture the robin as she (apparently only the females build the nests) dives in and out of the bush, about two feet away from the window. 

It's been brilliant to watch; she started off with beakfuls of leaves, and over the last two days we've seen her switch to moss, and now she's found either some hair or very fine grass. She approaches the bush along the fence, gets to a certain point, and watches for a while. Presumably to make sure no-one's nearby. Then she darts into a slightly more open bit of the jasmine, where I can see her hopping along the branches to the nest. Then out pops a little red head and chest, she has a quick look round, and then she drops to the floor and flies off to the nearby buddleia. 

One thing I noticed is that she seems to spend a fair bit of time gathering, but doesn't appear to work the material she gathers into the nest at that point; it's almost as though, having gathered the moss or hair, she chucks it into the nest to sort out later! Perhaps she gathers it while she finds it, then sets about making it part of the nest proper when she's gathered enough to work with?

I've also seen her mate feeding her - something I never realised happened until I caught him offering her what looked like a green caterpillar this morning. I had to look it up, because I couldn't understand why an adult bird, that I knew was nest-building, would need feeding. 

Looking forward very much to watching what happens from here on in...and maybe, just maybe, getting a few pictures if we're very, very lucky. 

In the meantime, here's some dodgy phonecam footage instead... (excuse my washing hanging on the line behind!)