A Harbinger of Spring? Yes well supposedly that’s what robins are and do. Usually it occurs on a
Robin Redbreast
day in late March or early April and by chance I happen to look out the window and yippee I am so excited – a ROBIN is in the yard! Is there anything more beautiful than seeing that big plump rosy breasted bird pecking away at the ground – it’s not lawn yet but sure ain’t snow anymore!! Well that’s what usually happens. SO HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN the fact that yesterday after we shoveled, cursed, dragged downed tree branches to the side of the house, swore, rehung the bird feeder, moaned, chipped away the ice, whined, salted the walkway and finally went into the house to get out of wet shoes and warm up cold hands – – there they were!! At first it was just one, and then three and then I looked up into the tree in the yard behind us and it was dotted with what looked like black silhouette blobs in the branches. ROBINS EVERYWHERE! I grabbed the binoculars to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating or had gone snow blind and yes they were big, they had red breasts (although most of theirs were orange-red) and gray tail feathers with white corners SO they must be robins. Even checked the Birds of North America book. There was a robin on the fence between our house and Mary and Mitch’s. There was a robin on the walkway in front of the trash cans, there were a couple of robins in the tree that dropped the big branches in our yard. There were robins all over the place. Nicky (the cat) was sooooooo excited. He sat in the back window, eyes darting back and forth, fascinated by the activity going on in his backyard. When he spotted the tail feathers of one who was in the gutter, I thought he would fall off of his perch on the windowsill. There is a foot of new snow on the ground and about 20 robins are hovering around and only God knows why. Either they made a wrong turn or consulted a goofy groundhog because they were definitely in the wrong place at the wrong time. There would be no worms for them today. I felt really bad about the fact we had just refilled the bird feeder, put new suet up and hung corn for the squirrels but robins prefer worms and grubs and although they also eat berries, we had nothing for them. After all the tsuris seeing them was a lovely treat. I did find an interesting fact in the bird book about their habits; apparently robins will flock together in a winter roost, sometimes in the hundreds and even in the thousands. And then later in the evening while I was relating the bird incident to my brother-in-law Matt, he mentioned that I already told him about this (which I hadn’t) and then remembered that his daughter, Dani who lives in Virginia had just told him about a flock of robins landing in her yard a day or two ago – so what’s going on here? Are the robins migrating north too soon? With nothing to eat, what will they do? Turn around?
See new post: Baby It’s Cold Outside! Hello Robin Redbreast!!
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