IN PRAISE OF ROBINS

     On February tenth of 2026, I saw several American robins flying briskly around our neighborhood in New Holland, Pennsylvania in a way I didn't see them behave all winter.  It was as if they were celebrating spring on a day when the high temperature was in the high 30's, after a couple of weeks of extreme cold, day and night.  Next day, I saw up to 30 robins darting in and out of planted juniper bushes, bordering a parking lot, where they were eating the shrubs' pale-blue, berry-like cones in nearby Honeybrook.  All that robin activity in two days made me, again, remember and appreciate local robin activities during every season through each year.  

     Although many robins migrate to the southern United States for the winter, some stay north in the States, adding more life and beauty to it.  Most wintering robins in the north ingest a variety of berries from hedgerow shrubbery, and bushes planted on lawns in suburban areas.

     Known to most everyone, and obvious to many people, American robins are year around residents in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and in much of North America.  They are adaptable, many of them using planted shrubs and young trees on lawns to nest in, often right at windows where they can be easily observed raising offspring.  But some robins rear youngsters in woodland edges and hedgerows.  All parent robins catch a variety of invertebrates from lawns and certain fields to consume, and feed to their young in their mud and grass cradles.

     American robins are wonderful feathered neighbors to have in suburban areas, where many of them live through much of the year.  They have several attractive features and behaviors that make them popular among many people.  They have handsome feathering, particularly males.  Newly-fledged young also have appealing plumages, including the dark spotting on their rusty and white chests.  

     During early March, we see restless flocks of migrating robins.  Each gathering stops here and there to refuel on berries, and, maybe, invertebrates, depending on the temperature.  Each robin runs and stops, runs and stops when looking for invertebrates on short-grass lawns.   

     Every dawn and dusk, from late March to late June, male robins produce wild choruses of lovely song that proclaim territory and bond with their mates.  I have often heard those beautiful, inspiring concerts many times in several suburbs.  

     Female robins build solid, rounded cradles of mud and fine grass in the forks of shrubs and young trees.  Each female lays four lovely, blue eggs in her nursery, which are brooded by her and her mate in different shifts for about two weeks.  The resulting young are fed invertebrates by both parents.     

     American robins are members of the thrush family, and young robins have the dark dots on their underparts, like woodland thrushes, to prove that.  Always adaptable, robins seem to have been a species of clearings of shrubs and young trees in forests.  When Europeans cleared forests to create farms, robins benefitted, but their relatives, woodland thrushes, retreated with the forests.  Today, the creation of lawns and fields makes an ever-expanding universe for robins to live and nest in, increasing their numbers.  There probably are more robins today in North America than ever in their history.  

     I have always enjoyed seeing and hearing robins: and never grow tired of them.  They are a wonderful, adaptable species we can experience right at home.   

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