Overachiever-- 5 Eggs!

Yesterday after mist-netting we checked nests at our Mara site, which is just next to where we live in Takoma Park. We found five eggs in this nest in a small blue spruce, amazing! The female incubated them during the storm, hunkering down during the rain and toughing it out even though the nest has very little shelter since the tree is so small (about eight feet tall). Even more amazing.

So far we've only come across three nests with more than four eggs. 3-4 eggs is typical for a robin. The nests with 5 are the one above, one I posted a picture of earlier at our Brown site near Foggy bottom and one at Baltimore that we checked Wednesday. The one at Baltimore appeared to have three eggs when my advisor and I checked it on Saturday. Then Wednesday, when Eagle Eyes and I looked, it had two newly hatched nestlings and three eggs... I stared and stared, unsure how to account for that but I guess my advisor and I must have missed two eggs or possibly a second female robin laid two more eggs in the nest (I was pretty certain there were only three eggs in it Saturday so possibly the latter is the more likely scenario)? The Birds of North America says 5 eggs is rare for a robin nest, and more than that is always due to another female laying in the nest (called intraspecific brood parasitism or cuckoldry).

The photo looks so diaphanous because it is shot of the image in the mirror we used to check the nest, not actually looking down onto the nest itself because it was slightly above my height. I really like the way it came it out, all dreamy like.