By Staff
In the spring I just can't wait to hear or see a robin.
Its annual spring arrival is greatly anticipated.
And once they have been about and around for awhile this anticipation for the bird quickly declines.
Thursday, April 27, was a perfect spring day. I couldn't have asked or prayed for a better one. It wasn't too warm or too cold.
The sun felt very welcoming and warm on my sleeve. Every now and then a soft breeze would gently caress my hair.
It was the perfect day to dig up and redo one of my flower beds. Better do it now, I told myself, before we get the really hot stuff in the 80s. This kind of work should be planned for cooler days.
After digging out what I wanted to keep and what was past its prime, I began turning over the rest of the area by hand with a shovel.
I decided it was pretty much done, to my satisfaction.
It was time for a bite of lunch.
After lunch, lo and behold, there gorging itself on all the earthworms it could find was a huge, roly-poly robin.
But wait, I shouldn't be getting ahead of myself. I should go back a bit in my story.
Earlier, as I was doing all this digging and gardening, I noticed a very, very stout robin.
It was on a branch or two above me, just watching, biding its time, waiting.
I noticed its little black watery eyes, watching, blinking, observing, taking in everything I was doing, thinking a meal was to be had shortly.
While it was dining it hopefully ran across a few hostile bugs (such as wireworms, Japanese beetle grubs, earwigs, cutworms, centipedes or millipedes, slugs or snails and any June beetle grubs, too).
I don't begrudge a bird a meal, but leave some earthworms for my garden, please!
I've worked really hard and this hasn't happened overnight, it has taken quite a a few years to do this, incorporating into my sandy soil lots and lots of organic matter, such as aged manure, chopped laves, grass clippings and peat moss.
And now that the soil is really coming along and there are earthworms galore.
Up from nowhere pops all these robins! I swear I have a robin for every square foot of my property, hanging around, eating and nesting!
It seems every time I turn around or try to take a step, I almost trip over one.
A robin (Turdus migratorius - I didn't make this name up, by the way) has made a nest in one of my pergolas. I watched it take in beakful after beakful of mulched leaves and mud from my freshly-watered flowerbed.
This darn opportunistic bird! Great things about this is, though, my grandson, Ethan, will get a big kick out of watching yet another nest of baby birds grow and mature.
Last year, Ethan got the biggest kick out of hand-feeding earthworms to the bottomless, gaping mouth of a young robin.
Oh well, how about a few interesting facts about robins?
We always think that robins migrate to somewhere far off, to some southerly warm place.
While most do head south, some in milder zones may migrate to a spot that is not that far away. Some might spend their winter closer to their homes than we think.
All flocked together in the woods or in some dense vegetation in a spot less noticed, less obvious to us. Awaiting spring and the mating season and then back home again to a more noticeable open area. A female likes to nest in trees. They really like ledges less than 12 to 15 feet above the ground.
In this nest made of grass, feathers, twigs and mud are laid three to five pale blue eggs.
Two weeks after hatching, a young bird thinks it's ready and it leaves the nest.
For two more weeks on the ground, mother and father keep a watchful eye on junior. They tend and feed the young. Soon it will be able to fly. Its chances are not that great, only one in four, that it will make it to the ripe old age of 13 years.
I guess robins do benefit us humans by eating beetle grubs, caterpillars, grasshoppers and, of course, earthworms.
Birds, if you find them in my garden, you are more than welcome to them all except the earthworms. Go easy on the earthworms.
They are also the planters of quite a few mystery plants as they scatter about fruit and berry seeds by droppings.
I read this part in my Rodale's Organic Gardening Magazine. Since robins feed mostly on things found in our lawns, the Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology notes that a dead robin can be an indicator of chemical pollution.
And a study by the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center found higher levels of lead in the blood of city robins compared to lower levels found in that of rural robins.
Lead, left over from leaded gasolines and paint, contaminates the dirt robins eat while dining on earthworms.