Two Hatched, One Egg

Two Hatched, One Egg

On the Tuesday after Memorial Day I looked in the robin nest and saw that two of the eggs had hatched. I was surprised to not see the egg shell in the nest or on the ground; some searching led me to learn that the mother pulls the shell out and drops it far from the nest to dissuade predators.

The nest is located outside of our kitchen and is only about four feet off of the ground, so I can get in close. However pushing the branches out of the way to squeeze in my head, the camera, the flash, and a small softbox is a delicate balance. The compromise in the photo is that getting so close means that depth of field is very shallow (about 1/4"), so getting focus right is tough — and as you can see in this photo, I didn’t nail it.