Roosting Robins
© 2006 Mike McDowell
As an early riser, a very early riser, I'm usually awake as the birdsong from our neighborhood American Robins reaches its morning peak – there must be literally thousands of them throughout the village of Waunakee. They are often the first birds to initiate the morning choir of birdsong and the last birds heard as dusk falls. Mornings provide one type of experience, but evenings offer another far more entertaining. No matter how often witnessed, there's no decrease in my fascination and enjoyment of watching robins go to roost. It can be as relaxing as it is hilarious, but when it comes to birds I'm pretty easy to please.
June is the best month for observing roosting robins...calm evenings with clear skies are best. Hopefully there aren't too many mosquitoes out. I'll take my seat on the front steps in preparation for the evening ritual. At twilight, a few robins appear at the periphery of our yard, slowly converging toward the center beneath our maple trees. A few moments pass, then even more birds appear seemingly out of nowhere – dim light makes it difficult to detect their inbound landings. Eventually the yard is dotted with twenty or thirty robins as fireflies begin to meander through the dampening air.
By this time most of the robins have switched from their melodious song to gentler durp-durp-durp-durp calls, though a few birds off in the distance continue full song. Then like clockwork, each bird makes the short flight from the ground up to a tree branch in one of our maples. It's bedtime and their vocalizations further decrease in volume as the sleepy birds settle in for the night...chur-chur-chur-chur...durp-durp-durp-durp. DEEP-DEEP!
Invariably, an occasional robin will zoom up to the dense canopy only to disturb another bird already at roost. There's a short skirmish and a rapid fire of intensified deep-deep calls. The conflicts are resolved quickly when either the offending bird hops over to claim an unoccupied branch or the other is pushed out.
In a way, I think it would be sort of neat to have a night-vision camera mounted on a branch inside the dense canopy and record their interactions. But the rustling leaves, dipping branches, shifting vocalizations and occasional feathered silhouettes fuels my imagination with a perfect sense of what's going on under that dense, dark canopy of leaves.
posted by Mike McDowell @ 10:40 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Fun post! I love to listen to them, too. The skeeters have been chasing me inside early lately.
Hey Mike....
Yep, love my Robins also. They are almost like pets to me. When I am out mowing the yard or raking leaves one or two will be following me around like little puppy dogs hoping they will get their favorite treat.
I do a little fishing and sometimes I may have a stash of worms. When this happens I will go into the house, get a worm or two, sit down in the driveway so they can see the worm when I toss it out a little ways. You have to be real carefull of how you toss it and sometimes the movement will startle them and they move off while other times they will catch site of the worm wiggling once it hits the pavement and charge over and begin tossing it around like a cat playing with a mouse. Of course the worms I have are usually Night Crawlers so the challange to eat it can get humourous at times. And if another Robin catches the action, look out!
Have a bird bath in the backyard and when the youngsters get old enough to fly, on occasion you will see mom at the bird bath showering, with the kid in tow of course. Even appears at times they are trying to teach the youngster how the bathe. That also gets to be a bit humourous at times because when the young one finally takes the plunge it just stands there in the water for the longest time with this look like, "Okay mom, turn it on." And you can almost see a look of disgust from time to time on mom's face. Then she will just give up and fly off - kid in tow of course.
Well, I've rambled a bit but like I said, love my Robins.
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