LOWER BURRELL -- When Joan Petras came back from California, she found that two uninvited new neighbors had set up housekeeping in the artificial dogwood tree on her front porch. The new neighbors scattered dirt and straw all over the floor, woke her up early with their incessant chattering and were so unfriendly that any time she tried to go onto the porch to say hello, they fled. "I woke up to all this singing and chirruping on the front porch, and I wondered what the heck was going on out there," Petras recalls, "so I look out the window and over to my tree, and there's these birds, two robins, just sitting there, looking at me. They found a nice home, all right." And now, the two robins have another surprise on the way for Petras -- three new eggs have been spotted in the nest in the silk dogwood tree. Bought six years ago at a local furniture store, the tree is a careful silk replica of the real thing, complete with large, snowy-white blossoms lifelike enough to fool even other wildlife. When Petras ran out of room in her Lower Burrell apartment, she was too attached to the tree to give it away, so she decided to move it onto her porch, little guessing that it would provide a home for an entire family. Petras plans to leave the tree exactly where it is. "I don't know what else I'd do with it," she says. "I'm sure (the robins) will be back next year, and maybe I'll even get some cardinals or blue jays for the winter." For right now, Petras wake every morning to a serenade of birds. Things still get a little messy from time to time, and the robins still fly away when she steps out on the porch to read or look at the view, but soon enough, she'll have plenty of company -- the eggs are due to hatch any day now.

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