That is so cool! What a wonderful experience!

We had a midwinter robin convention here one year, probably around 2003 or 2004, only they were more in the woodland than in the yard and they were washing and splashing along the shallow edges of the creek. They stayed all day, and then they left, and that was that.

Early Robins,early spring??? I bet the convention was quite a site.

I got curious and looked it up. Robins never leave, we just don't see them so much because their eating habits change. They form huge flocks in winter, sometimes in the hundreds or even thousands searching for berries, I never knew that before. Its got nothing to do with being an indication of early spring....dang it. Actually, considering the forecast I have no complaints.
http://www.birdsandblooms.com/blog/do-robins-really-return-in-the-spring/

I knew they never really leave and them come back as I looked up and found some robin info just like you did after our robin convention here years ago. Still, I think it is pretty special to see them. Our 10 acres of woods are full of berry-producing native plants, so we have tons of birds around all winter, but we still don't see the robins as much as I'd think that we would. Of course, I'm not generally walking through the woods either. I think any day that a person gets to witness that many robins doing their thing is a pretty happy day even if it is not necessarily a sign that spring is coming.

Actually...they do migrate (or some of them do), there are several subspecies of Robins...and some migrate through our area to/fro North/South.

I wonder where they go? I never see one till it starts to warm up. Thought they left.

They are in the woodlands eating berries off all the plants! I think that ours stay here in OK all winter because we mostly have plentiful food available. When robins do migrate, they tend to migrate out of areas which routinely have heavy snow cover which makes finding food impossible. Don't y'all ever see them splashing in puddles after rain or in creeks or in birdbaths? I don't see them often in winter, but I see them enough to know they are around. Really, our bird population here doesn't seem to drop all that much in winter, except for the obvious things like hummingbirds. Our yard is full of wild birds all the time, but that could be because we have multiple bird feeders that we keep filled for them.

We'd had tons of bees out this week too. Dozens and dozens, They are feeding on the cracked corn we put out for the mourning doves. It was 74 degree here today so even the lady bugs were out.

We mostly see breeding pairs in warm seasons. In winter they flock together in large groups, in woodland areas as Dawn said. I remember seeing hundreds at Oxley Nature Center in Tulsa some years back. It is quite a shock to see them in groups like that.

It is a shock, but it is a cool shock of the best kind.

There was a lot of orange and I got to hear a cheerful symphony in the bargain with a single screeching bluejay trying to join in sounding seriously out of tune and grossly outnumbered. I think robins have the most cheerful song of all birds. Whenever I put in a late nighter with work in summer I hear them in the very early hours, around 4am. This year we have a titmouse in a large shrub up front. I love those too.

I love the image of that screeching bluejay! I agree about the robins. We have lots of little chickadees in winter and cardinals, and then the usual finches and sparrows and doves, so at least we do have some bird song in winter, though not as much as we have in spring and summer.

When you put out corn and wild bird seed don't the crows and blackbirds run off the other birds? I always had to use Safflower seed or they took over the yard. I love to feed the birds in winter but don't want to pay the high price for Safflower seed.

If crows show up in my yard I stop feeding for a few days. The only corn I feed is in the chicken scratch, so hopefully the chickens eat it. I only feed sunflower seed and safflower. Safflower is supposed to be unattractive to house sparrows, but you couldn't tell by my feeder. Millet seems to draw blackbirds and housesparrows. I have wondered if I could grow safflower, but I think it would need too much room. I'm thinking you would have more crows Stockergal, in a rural setting than I do, and pastures seem to attract blackbird flocks.

Amy, I know I'm a weirdo, but I love the crows and feed them all they want. When I do that, they adopt our place as their territory and will spend the rest of the day chasing away hawks and kites that try to prey on our free-ranging chickens and turkeys.

Stockergal, No, not really. All the birds cooperate fairly well here, an attitude that developed during the horrific drought of 2011 when everyone had to cooperate in order to get the food and water we put out or else they wouldn't survive. We sometimes joking refer to our place as The Peaceable Kingdom precisely because 99% of the wildlife try to get along and share food, or at least tolerate one another. When I look out a window at night and see possums, cottontails, coons and armadillos sharing an animal waterer and peacefully drinking together, it just makes me smile. I could stand and watch them for a long time, but if they look up and see me watching, it scares them and they take off. We only get roadrunners at the feeders and waterers during the worst droughts, and that year even the quail, roadrunners, painted buntings and other rarely-seen wild birds came and ate and drank together. I think they just were relieved to have a consistent source of food and water they could count on, particularly after all the creeks and ponds dried up.

This morning I forgot to put out sunflower seeds for the cardinals. A little while ago, I looked up and one cardinal was sitting outside the kitchen window staring at me. I got the message and hurried outside to put out the sunflower seeds. When I came back in, that little cardinal left the window screen and went to join the others at the sunflower seeds. How smart is that? He not only knew he needed to make me aware that I forgot to feed them, but he also knew to come to the kitchen window to get my attention. I think these wild birds are a lot smarter than we realize.

Hummingbirds are the same way. If they arrive before I fill and hang the windows, they come to the kitchen window. It amazes me how smart they are. If the feeder runs out of nectar and I'm in the garden, they come to the garden and fly circles around my head. Tim says I'm another Dr. Doolittle. lol. I just think that the birds are smart enough to figure out how to remind me to help them.

Dawn

I really don't see many crows here. I will leave them be if they show up. I get pigeons, though, and I will quit feeding until they go away. When we had geese and fed them cracked corn, I had more trouble like that.

I guess we are too far out in the country to get pigeons (for which I am grateful) but we have the beautiful mourning doves, including an occasional pure white one. I love hearing the doves coo. Sometimes they sit on the power lines for hours and watch me work in the garden, cooing all the while. When I was a very young child and would spend a week or two in the country with my grandparents, I always woke up in the morning to the sound of the doves cooing, so when I hear that here, it instantly takes me back to my childhood. People always comment on how quiet rural life must be. Ha! It is not quiet at all, but it does feature a different kind of sounds than what you hear living in the city. I prefer the sounds we hear at night in the country to the city noises---we still hear whippoorwills occasionally at night and sometimes the chuckwalla's widow too. And, of course, owls, frogs and coyotes and such. Our quiet nights aren't really quiet at all, but they are a lot quieter in winter when we don't have the incessant drone of summer insects like grasshoppers, crickets and locusts.

This is not a bird story, but I had to post it (since we are talking about how clever animals can be).

I was in the bathroom this morning, standing at the sink, when my youngest cat (she's 3 y/o) came into the bathroom, jumped up on the toilet, perched herself and tinkled right in the bowl. She just looked at me, finished up, and jumped down. I was floored! I have never had a cat do such a thing. I caught her on the toilet before, but I just thought she was trying to get into the medicine cabinet, which she does from time to time. She steals little things of mine, like makeup brushes, and takes them to her "lair". Anyway, that's my animal story for the day.

Well, while having absolutely nothing to do with Robins...still a good story :) And a very very clever cat. What's her history, was she possibly potty trained to the toilet before you got her ?

Now teach her to flush, LOL. I always wished my cats would do that. Some people teach them. Maybe she learned by watching, because I know no cat that believes in bathroom privacy.

dbarron, I rescued her and her littermates when she was a newborn. Her mother was living in an abandoned garage next door and made her way over here pregnant and starving. I started feeding the mother, and next thing I knew she'd had her kittens and was moving them all into the hollow of a dead tree in my back yard. I had someone come and help me, and we got the kittens out and I got a kennel and fostered them all until they were six weeks old. Everybody got adopted, but I kept this little one. She was the runt. She follows me everywhere, sleeps with me, nurses on my old bathrobes, etc. She never lets me go to the bathroom or bathe alone.

Amy, wouldn't that be something? She tries to open doors by turning the knobs (she only accomplishes locking them), so maybe she can learn to flush! lol

Some cats do figure out how to open door knobs...be aware.