They can but once the female starts incubating you don't see them very often. You may just be missing them. What you could do is very carefully take a sharpie and mark a small dot on one of the eggs and then check the next day to see if the mark has moved. The eggs are turned during incubation so the dot should not stay in the same place. Even if the dot doesn't move though give the eggs the proper 14+ days to hatch, so count from the day the last egg was laid and then at least 14 days from that date to decide if the eggs aren't viable anymore. I have had a male go missing when the female was incubating, he was gone for four days but she as still there. Good luck, hope you are just missing seeing them.

I have no idea; very strange indeed. Robins are usually loyal and caring parents. I would stay away; they would feed the baby while building others "nests" I think. Robins sometimes change their minds and build a few nests before egg-laying; not usually while raising young though.

We moved into our house in March, and I was so excited to find that the previous owners had a bluebird box up and that we had a bluebird pair checking it out. Im honestly not a bird person but I am partial to bluebirds because they remind me of my mom. For 2 months I saw the bluebirds every day and there was a nest inside. One morning I woke up to find the front of the box on the ground. There were no eggs and no sign of any struggle and the nest was mostly in tact. We closed the box and secured it and within a couple of days the bluebirds were back and clearly working on their nest. The male was scaring off the other birds and I saw the mama bird peeking her head out from time to time. I thought all was well. Then about 2 weeks ago it seemed like they weren't coming around as much. The male was nowhere in sight so I went to check on the box and when I went near the hole, the mama bird flew out and startled me. That was the last I have seen of my bluebirds. About a week later, my husband opened the box to check on it and found the nest with an egg underneath. We closed it back up and waited but still saw no sign of the bluebirds. A few days ago, he took a closer peek, digging around a bit with a stick, and this time he found 4 eggs. We think they were probably all there the first time but he didn't dig so he only saw the one. All the eggs were under the nest, not on top like I'd expect. Still, we were hopeful that the mama was just being sneaky about when she came around, so we closed the box back up. Then yesterday I noticed something hanging out of the box so my husband checked again. 2 of the eggs were in pieces (the thing I saw poking out was a bit of shell) and 2 remained in tact. We took an egg in the dark with the flashlight and it looked empty so we cleaned out the nest in hopes that they will come back and start fresh. I'm so upset that this happened. Is it possible that by peeking in that one day I scared the mama enough to abandon her eggs?? I feel awful that I might be the reason for them leaving, and am looking for advice on how to get them to come back, and what to do differently so that we have more success next time. I so miss seeing them every day.

Hi- just left a detailed message with another that they may want to leave their message on bluebirdnut.com, which is a more active site. This may be helpful to you as well. Has there been any bad weather or circumstances to delay the process for them? Once you are absolutely certain that the nest has been abandoned, you may want to clean out the box to give them or another couple another chance since it is still early in the season. Have you tried putting a blade of grass in the entrance to make sure there is no activity coming or going? Best of luck!