Every year my mother says something about the Robins in the Spring.  When I was growing up we lived in Ohio and the Robins building their nests marked the official arrival of the change in seasons for us.  Along with the comments about Spring, it also brought the re-telling of the time when my mother rescued and raised a baby Robin when she was a girl.

I always loved that story.  The unintended affect was the initiation of a quest my brother and I would embark on to try to setup our own rescue operation.  Seeking out nests that “might be abandoned” so we could raise the baby birds.  This brought about a steady stream of threats from both my parents to leave those nests alone and verbal regrets that they ever mentioned them in the first place.  So much for the tender family-time moment my mother likely envisioned 🙂

Since we couldn’t seem to get support for raiding the nests, my brother and I decided perhaps we could catch an adult bird to transform into a pet.  We set up a box in the yard, propped it up with a stick, tied a very long string to it and sat “patiently” a few feet away after scattering bread all around and inside the box to entice the birds.

I’ll bet we tried that exercise hundreds of times, never once catching a bird.  Hmmm, I wonder if this is why my parents never interfered?

What marks Springtime for you?