army of roto-robins

19 years ago

I hate to say it, but normally robins don't get me excited. What I mean is, in the world of birding they are "bellybutton" birds--everybody has one. But this morning it's the robins that have my attention. It got down to about 4 this morning and that has all manner of bird out furiously trying to find calories, but the robins ---you can't help but watch! There is a single flock about something like 40 birds (and one lone grackle) split between the front and back yards, and every leaf is being turned over. I can't say for certain what they are finding--I haven't been able to pick anything out through the binocs--but they are under oak,ash, cherry, elm, and hickories and the leaf litter is something like 4 inches deep and full of possibilities. When one bird has been jerking and pulling and ripping up leaves in one spot for long, you no longer see much of the bird other than the top of its head. Even the leaves that are frozen to the ground are eventually tugged up and vigorously tossed aside. And as a patch is combed through the whole group is slowly drifting on to untouched areas. Right now in my yard, any insect that hasn't burrowed in deeper to escape the cold is in serious trouble.

The pickings must be good...think of the calories expended searching through debris like that.

I want to see what they are finding but the windows keep fogging up on me....

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Comments (7)

vonyon
19 years ago
Great story DG. Thanks for sharing. I hope to have time soon to fog up my own windows. I still have 20's during the day here and subzero at night. The bluebirds are hanging in though. I have about six that show up daily. No robins are out of the woods yet.
Elly_NJ
19 years ago
I noticed that the Robins are moving through. I love your description.
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bogturtle
19 years ago
Great flocks swing through, periodically, every Winter. Provision of a shallow container of water, on a day when all is frozen, results in a minor riot. Holly is the major understory tree here and, this year, in contrast to other years, they have taken almost all the berries. They may have some subtle, but beneficial effect, on the forest, such as letting seeds get under the leaf litter to contact the soil and sprout. It's a great and harmonious concert of behavior out there. I have a rather long-winded,but, to me, funny story of how they have frustrated me in getting a display of Ilex verticillata berries from the bush I planted.
sumac
19 years ago
just yesterday I enjoyed a visit by two males and a female in a crabapple outside the kitchen window. It appeared as though they were snatching an apple and spitting it out after a couple of chews. They were too close for binocs to be of much help and we got additional snow cover so going out to look at the litter beneath the tree is not an option. Anyone with any ideas?
dirtgirl
Original Author
19 years ago
Love to hear your story, bogturtle....
bogturtle
19 years ago
I want more color in Winter, so I planted a winterberry bush, hoping the fairly common ones in the neighborhood would provide pollen. The bush I planted was a female, for the red berries,but a male must be nearby, so insects can carry the pollen. Several years passed by with a dozen or less berries, each Fall. Bought a small male, and it was lost, because someone probably stepped on it. Probably me!
Finally got another male and, while still potted from the nursery, put it under the female bush. Amazing display of berries in Sept. We're talking about 5 years of patience here. My first wave of robins swept through, last week of Sept., and took almost every berry, ignoring the regular hollies,native to my woods. Gardening is like that. I just laughed.
dirtgirl
Original Author
19 years ago
Yep. I have decided that Murphy (the law writer) must have been a gardener.

Looks like the only color you got this year was robin-red!