American Robin: A Close Encounter

The nice weather recently has led me to open windows at night, which means that the dawn chorus  will occasionally wake me up earlier than I would rather. One morning I snapped awake, instead of the slow return to awareness that the bird song usually brings. The song of what I thought could have been a scarlet tanager (similar to a robin but more burry) cut through my brain bringing me to full alertness. By the time I got dressed and headed outside I no longer heard anything like a tanager, but I decided to grab my binoculars and camera and sit on the back steps.

Brown-headed Cowbird

I heard lots of robins, chickadees, crows, and grackles while sitting in the calm before the human residents were yet awake. A brown-headed cow bird perched at the top of the a nearby cedar tree singing his high-pitched song. After only a couple of minutes a pair of great blue herons flew low over head, which was quite a surprise to me! Soon there after, an American robin caught my attention at the far end of the yard. This was a female robin as her head was gray (not black) and her breast was not the deep burnt orange of a male, but more interestingly she had a worm in her mouth. Now I think the following encounter can be told in pictures alone.

After watching the female robin make several trip to this bush and getting lots of pictures I decided it was time for breakfast. All the while eating, I kept thinking about what was in the bushes that was so interesting to her. I was hoping there might be a robin nest (though the in retrospect I realize that robins like to have their nests a little higher), so I swapped the telephoto lens for the normal kit lens on the camera and head back outside to see what I could find.

Juvenile Robin

I was quite lucky that this young robin was so photogenic and didn't mind my presence. Typically I would largely ignore robins when birding our local parks, but sitting in my own back yard they became great subjects of study. I think robins, with a funny turn of fate, seem much more benign than the otherwise might. American Robins are named by our early European settlers after the European robin, which shares an orange breast, though they are not related. Our American robin is actually a thrush (notice the speckled breast of the juvenile in the picture above) related to the wood thrush, hermit thrush, veery, and bluebird. I've even seen some refer to them as black-headed thrushes, which sounds quite a bit more exciting that the robin of grassy lawns that we think of today. In the spring and summer robins forage grassy areas for worms and insects, which makes them sensitive to pesticide use on lawns. While in the fall and winter robins are voracious fruit eaters, greatly enjoying small berries. Even though robins are frequently overlooked, their song is one of the most recognized (and enjoyed) by birders and non-birders alike.