Text and Photographs by Boysenberry45
With a population approaching 400 million, Robins are one of the most abundant landbirds, so it’s easy to take them for granted. Unless of course you were one of the “twitchers” — the British term for birders — who traveled a great distance to Eastbourne, a seaside resort near Sussex, to see a Robin that got seriously off-course on its migratory flight from the United States to Mexico in February, 2022.
Closer to home, in Central Park, the American Robin is the bird most muttered about when a birder has had a slow birdwatching day (“all I’ve seen are Robins (sigh)”), but it’s also a delightful harbinger of spring. The majority of Robins migrate to warmer climes in the winter and in the spring the NYC Robin population increases dramatically. Robins are one of the first birds to sing in the morning and among the first birds to build nests in the spring.
Unlike haphazard, messy Sparrow nests, Robin nests are a tidy, well-constructed combination of grass and mud. Female Robins build the nests on their own and do all the incubation, too, raising 2-3 broods per year, between April and July. Robins are not into recycling — each brood gets a new nest with 3-5 lovely light-blue eggs that take 14 days to hatch. Robin chicks are altricial (under-developed and helpless) when they hatch, covered only in fuzz with their eyes shut. Within two weeks, however, they fledge and unlike some grown children in NYC, leave the nest for good.
Female Robins are very attentive to their nests and will remove eggs from other birds (unlike Scarlet Tanagers who may mistakenly incubate a Cowbird egg). Robins are a member of the thrush family, with a somewhat silly Latin name (Turdus Migratorius), that translates to “migratory thrush”.
Please do not confuse American Robins with Eastern Towhees (Pipilo Erythrophthalmus), which may look similar at first glance and are sometimes called “ground Robins,” but are actually members of the sparrow family. Robins are larger, have a distinctive white marking around their dark brown eyes versus Towhees which have bright red eyes and white on the lower half of their breasts. Robins eat insects, worms, fruit, and berries. Astoundingly, Robins hunt for worms by sight and by hearing them below ground, too. So please stop taking them for granted!
Correction: We had the order of the photographs confused at first, but they are now arranged correctly.
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That first picture is an eastern towhee
The top picture is not a Robin but a Towhee.
Thanks Jenny and Kate. Corrected.
A robin raised 3 babies in a nest on a ledge outside my second-story north-facing bedroom window on W76th St. last month.
Fascinating.
I read its the male doing all the feedings-many per day.
The trio fledged on the ledge for like a day and whoosh were gone.
Great photos and story, thank you. Love that you capture such a great shot of the thrush-like spots on the chests and bellies of the two young robins being fed. The thrush family are all called “turdidae” in Latin, but what groups them in my mind is their wonderful singing. I’m not a birder, but the sound of an enthusiastic Spring robin will stop me in my city tracks and have me looking for the singer sporting the heightened feather colors of the season. To hear songs of rarer and wilder thrushes in the deep woods of upstate parks is an ethereal natural experience. Now I know about their hearing (worms?!) I will appreciate what singing my human ears can catch all the more!
Twitchers are birders who are obsessive in adding a bird to their Life List or other List. Not all birders are twitchers but all twitchers are birders.
We had a pregnant female waddling around the little garden on the northside of DeWitt Clinton Park a couple of weeks ago. There was a male scurrying around helping out. I wonder if she’ll have another brood I early summer. The three brood in a year business was new to me…poor mothers!
Robins are my favorite Spring Bird they have a unique sound when they chirp. I can tell when they’re around..
It’s a sign of spring…..Well not any more…
Unfortunately, due to climate change, they have adapted to our change in weather and now staying in the North East during the winter months. The majority of Robins were heading to the Carolinas/Florida/Texas for the winter for many years until the past 10 /15 years they have been taking up residence right here in Central Park and the New York/New Jersey suburbs.
Many now called Winter Robbins, as long as the food is there, they won’t move south.