Tuesday, March 6, 2007

Active Robins: A sign of spring?

Last evening I looked out the window and saw over thirty birds on my front yard.

Many birds in the yard is not that unusual. But when I looked closer, I could see that they were all Robins! Now that is a bit unusual. We usually only see a few at a time around here, and usually not this soon in the year.

Many people here say that when Robins appear in the yard it means that spring has just about arrived. I would like to think that to be true but as I write this it is 25 degrees outside. I wonder if these robins are just passing through. I have heard that the ones that do migrate travel in large groups like this one.

We have become particularly interested in robins since we had the nest in our peach tree, but I don't really know about their migration habits. I'd love to hear from some of you bird experts!

Do the robins know when warmer weather is coming?

2 comments:

OldRoses

Robins don't migrate. Yeah, I was disappointed when I found that out too! In the winter, their diet changes and they feed on berries which is why they "disappear" from your yard. They move to another area where they can find berries, then return to their summer feeding grounds for bugs when the weather gets warm in the spring. In the winter, look for robins in places where there are lots of berries. I recently saw hundreds of them in the holly grove at Rutgers Gardens.

Marc

I have heard different things about the habits of robins in winter. I think you are right about them not "migrating", but I wonder if they stay in the same general area or if they move around a lot.

My mom goes to Florida in the fall and winter and she says that hundreds of robins show up in January and February. She thought that they migrated from elsewhere. Interesting.

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