When Aaron discovers a robin’s nest outside his sliding glass door, a simple backyard moment turns into a daily ritual of wonder, worry, and unexpected responsibility. But when a murder of crows attacks the nest, Aaron finds himself stepping into nature’s drama, becoming an unlikely defender of three baby robins and learning something funny, humbling, and strangely beautiful about parenthood, protection, and letting go.
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The Team:
Story created & performed by: Aaron Calafato
Senior Audio Engineer: Ken Wendt
Additional vocals: Cori Calafato
Art: Pete Whitehead
Original Theme Music: thomas j. duke
Additional Soundscape Design: Isaac Gehring
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TRANSCRIPT
One of my kids came up to me in the morning and said, “Hey, you’ve got to see this robin’s nest right outside our sliding glass door.”
Right outside our sliding glass door, there’s a little evergreen tree. Immediately when you turn to the right, it’s right there. So I looked in, and there it was. This huge robin’s nest with these beautiful bright blue eggs.
At that moment, I was transfixed.
I just got really interested. I thought, “Oh, that’s really cool.”
And as the days went on, I started getting involved on a daily basis. I would check on these eggs pretty much every day. It became a routine for me to be involved with this robin and the well-being of these eggs that were about to hatch.
I became obsessed.
At this point, the kids stopped caring as much, and I was telling everybody, “Hey, did you see the eggs? Is everything okay today? How’s the robin doing?”
I started looking at the backyard differently than I had before. I started looking at it for threats.
Were there any large birds?
Any animals that shouldn’t be there?
Large bugs?
What was the weather like?
Could it affect the nest?
Where was the robin?
What was she doing?
So I was there. I was like a partner in this. It almost felt like they were my own kids, but just animals in the form of birds outside my house.
And to watch the mother robin operate from day to day was incredible.
The amount of energy of motherhood that radiated from her was amazing. Flying around. Always alert. Always on guard. Getting sticks and collecting food and berries and doing whatever she did nonstop.
I was really in awe of this.
This went on for days until one morning, I went out and noticed the eggs had hatched. There were no more shells anymore. Just these three little robin heads with their mouths open. I could see them breathing. They were pulsating together.
It was this little feathery, pulsating form of life in the nest.
I would peek in there really quickly and quietly when the robin was gone. I didn’t disturb them. I would see her keep bringing worms back, and you could hear the sounds.
This went on for days.
I started thinking, “Pretty soon, these little baby robins are going to have to leave the nest. I can’t wait to see when that happens.”
And that’s when things took a turn.
I remember one morning, I was working. I was editing a podcast, and I heard this crazy sound.
And this is such a ridiculous word, but it was a murder of crows.
I had never heard that many crows in my life. It was so loud. Squawking. Cawing. It sounded like they were committing murder.
And I thought, “Oh no. The robin and the baby birds.”
So I went through the sliding glass door into the backyard, and I saw that I was in the middle of a war.
There were crows dive-bombing this little evergreen tree, trying to take out the nest. I don’t know if they were trying to eat the birds or attack the birds. I don’t know what was happening.
All I know is that the mother robin was out there fighting a war where she was outnumbered.
She was attacking crows. The crows were attacking her. They were trying to set little booby traps and get her out of the way so one of the other crows could fly down.
And I just couldn’t stand there and witness it anymore.
I couldn’t just be a bystander.
This wasn’t just National Geographic anymore, with me watching from a front-row seat.
I decided to open the glass door, and I decided to become part of nature.
I was going to defend this nest, these babies, and this mother robin.
And we essentially became, the robin and I, a superhero team.
Batman and Robin.
I started collecting sticks and little stones and putting them in my pocket like a utility belt. Then I started hurling the stones at the crows.
Now, I wasn’t trying to kill the crows. I was trying to scare them and distract them.
And if you could picture this from the outside, like if the neighbors were watching, you would see me throwing stones at these crows, trying to hit near them, while the robin was doing these dive bombs, flying and spinning in the air.
We were a sight to see.
It was incredible to watch and to be part of, to be honest with you.
Eventually, we pushed all the crows out. There was one crow left, kind of hanging on this branch.
The mother robin flew up there and pecked the top of his head. I took a tiny little stone and hit him right in the foot, and the crow flew off.
We were victorious.
Everything was safe.
Before I went inside, I quickly looked into the little evergreen tree and saw that the baby robins were okay.
That took a lot out of me.
I remember that night thinking, “Oh man, I hope nothing happens while I’m sleeping.”
The next morning, it was like Christmas morning. I ran out just to make sure everything was okay.
It was a very quiet morning. Very still.
I went and looked into the nest, and the baby robins were great. They looked really big, by the way. It was like they grew overnight.
And because the mother robin wasn’t there, I decided to stick my head in even further to get a closer look.
At that very moment, the three baby robins took flight and hit me directly in the face.
I staggered backward. I was trying to balance them mid-flight in my hands. They were on my head and my shoulder, and I realized I had stuck my dumb head in there at the exact moment of their first flight.
And now their lives were in the balance.
I couldn’t let them fall.
So I was half-cradling them with my hands, and I shot my hands and all three birds up toward the sky.
I said, “Fly, children, fly.”
And they did.
None of them fell.
They all survived.
Now I was almost crying, watching them fly back and forth between the trees with such exuberance as they started their lives.
And at the very same moment, the mother robin saw all of this and thought I was attacking her children.
So she started dive-bombing me.
She started trying to peck my eyes out.
I had to retreat and crawl back into the house. I shut the sliding glass door.
And there I was, inside, looking through the glass at this mother robin who had been my superhero partner.
And she was looking at me.
I could swear I knew the thoughts going through her head.
She was saying, “I knew I should never have trusted a human.”