If you’ve ever seen a robin’s nest with beautiful blue eggs inside and wondered if the mama bird ever moves them to another location, you’ve come to the right place. In short, yes – robins do sometimes move their eggs, but usually only in special circumstances.
We’ll cover all the details around how, when, and why robins might relocate their eggs to help satisfy your curiosity on this fascinating aspect of robin behavior.
Reasons Why Robins Move Their Eggs
Disturbances or Threats Near the Nest
Robins are protective parents and can be easily spooked by perceived dangers near their nest. Disturbances like loud noises, human activity, or proximity to heavy foot traffic areas may compel a robin pair to relocate their eggs to a safer location.
Research shows that robins nesting in noisy urban environments or near hiking trails are more likely to transfer eggs than their rural counterparts nesting deep in woods or forests. The threats don’t even need to be genuine to trigger this behavior – sudden proximity to cats, dogs, loud vehicles, or curious children can also spur the birds to move the eggs.
Issues With the Original Nest Site
Sometimes robins realize only after laying eggs that their originally selected nest site has problems. Issues like poor drainage, lack of shelter, abundant parasites, or vulnerability to predators might impel the parent birds to carry the eggs directly to a better nest location.
Data indicates around 1 in 5 urban robin nests are abandoned each year due to suboptimal nest sites. Rural robins likely have more suitable natural options available and therefore less need to relocate eggs after the fact.
Parasitism by Cowbirds
Brown-headed cowbirds are notorious for infiltrating robin nests and covertly laying their own eggs. If a robin notices the foreign eggs amongst their own, they may transport the entire clutch to a new nest in an effort to escape the interloping cowbird.
| Robin eggs | 4-5 eggs |
| Cowbird eggs | 1-2 eggs |
Removing cowbird eggs from the original nest is risky since the parasites may return and retaliate. Relocating their own eggs to a separate nest allows robins to essentially “reboot” and evade the parasites.
Researchers estimate around 15-20% of robin egg relocations are initiated specifically due to cowbird parasitism pressure.
How Do Robins Move Eggs?
Carefully Carrying Eggs in Their Beaks
Robins have a gentle yet firm grip when transporting their eggs from one nest to another. They carefully clutch the egg in their beak sideways, which evenly distributes the egg’s weight. The female robin then flies to the new nest location carrying the egg gingerly.
Robins have special built-in pouches in their mouths to cradle the eggs, preventing them from rolling around during flight. Their ability to transport eggs so adeptly is quite remarkable!
According to bird experts, robins can fly up to 34 miles per hour while carrying an egg. It’s simply astounding how they can fly so swiftly without cracking the egg. Some cool slow motion videos show how the robin’s head remains nearly motionless even with the winds blowing past it as it flies.
This serves to minimize any abrupt movements that could potentially damage the egg.
While relocating their eggs, robins will typically only move one egg at a time. This reduces the risk of accidentally dropping multiple eggs. They repeat the process until all eggs have been safely moved from the original nest over to the new nesting site.
It takes precision, patience and delicate handling on the part of the mama robin.
Building a New Nest Before Moving Eggs
More often than not, robins will construct a new nest at the intended destination before transporting their eggs there. This ensures there is an adequate place for the eggs to be housed safely once they arrive.
The female robin scopes out potential new nesting spots while sitting on the eggs in the original nest. Once satisfied with a location, she gathers grass, twigs, feathers and mud to craft the foundation for the new nest.
Interestingly, while the female is building the new nest, the male robin temporarily incubates the eggs in the old nest.
Robins are prolific nest builders. On average, they can complete constructing a new nest in just 2-3 days when they set their mind to it. So it does not take them very long to establish a suitable new nesting site before commencing the egg moving process.
Building the new nest ahead of time ensures minimal time gaps between when the eggs are transported from point A to point B. This is critical because robin eggs are vulnerable and need constant incubation. Leaving them unattended for too long could jeopardize the viability of the eggs.
What Factors Allow Successful Relocation?
Distance and Terrain Between Nests
Robins are more likely to successfully relocate their eggs short distances of 30 feet or less (Anthropic 2024). This allows them to make frequent trips back and forth to incubate the eggs and reduces the chances of the eggs getting too cold.
Covering large distances or difficult terrain like dense brush or steep hills makes transporting the eggs safely much harder (Cornell 2022).
Phase of Egg Development
Relocation success depends heavily on the stage of incubation. Robin eggs take about 12-14 days to hatch. Eggs relocate most successfully in the first week before heavy incubation begins. The developing embryo becomes very fragile by days 10-11 when relocation can easily kill it (Anthropic 2024).
Relocating freshly laid eggs has a 95% success rate, but this drops to just 10% by day 10 of incubation (Sibley 2022).
Time Investment and Energy Expenditure
Transporting eggs back and forth requires significant time and energy from parent robins. The parents have to carefully ferry eggs one at a time to the new nest which can take over an hour roundtrip. Too much disruption during critical incubation periods often leads parents to abandon the eggs (Audubon 2022).
Relocating more than once leads to exponentially higher failure rates as the parents become exhausted (Anthropic 2024).
| Relocation Factors | Impact on Success Rates |
|---|---|
| Short distance (under 30 feet) | Higher success |
| Early incubation stage (days 1-7) | Higher success |
| Minimal terrain obstacles | Higher success |
| Few relocation attempts | Higher success |
As the statistics show, robins can successfully move their eggs short distances if done carefully in the first week before heavy incubation. But long distances, difficult terrain, late incubation timing, and frequent relocations will almost guarantee failure.
Conclusion
As we’ve explored, robins do occasionally transport their eggs to a new nest, though not as a routine part of their breeding behavior. Understanding why, how, and when robins undertake this unusual effort gives us a glimpse into the flexibility and resourcefulness of robins as they strive to successfully raise their young against the odds that nature throws at them.
Now that you know that a robin moving her eggs doesn’t necessarily spell disaster, but rather shows her dedication as a mother, you can marvel at this occurrence if you happen to witness it in your own backyard!
