In folklore, the American Robin is symbolic of impending warmer weather and is believed to be a harbinger of Spring.
The sight of “robin redbreast” on suburban lawns after the retreat of a snow or cold snap in February or early March, is happy news in the waning days of winter.
With the advance of cold weather robins begin to feed heavily on fruits, mainly wild berries such as the berries on holly trees, sumac and hackberry.
The first robins of the year we see in late winter are typically birds looking for a new place to feed. As the ground thaws, they begin foraging for earthworms, a favorite food. They may be “local” robins, or migrants moving back northward.
The distance that robins migrate southward to escape the cold varies by region. “In the northern states, robins completely leave for the winter,” said Kate Slankard, an avian biologist for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. “I’d say the birds that nest around here don’t migrate that far.”
In Kentucky, robins assemble in big flocks in October and begin their southward migration, but some birds may not travel very many miles to reach their wintering grounds. By February, robins begin to separate from larger flocks and return to their nesting territories.
Geographic Range and Abundance
Widely distributed and abundant, the American Robin (Turdus migratorius), is a member of the Thrush family.
The American Robin is found throughout North America, nesting as far north as Alaska and Canada in the summer, wintering throughout the Lower 48 states, as far south as southern California, Baja, southern Texas, and into central Mexico. The American Robin is second to the red-winged blackbird as the most abundant extant land bird on the continent.
There are seven subspecies, but only the Turdus migratorius confinis of Baja California is particularly distinctive, with pale gray-brown underparts.
Habitat
Robins are found in diverse habitats, from urban parks to suburban neighborhoods, rural farmlands, woodlots, and mature forests, both deciduous and coniferous.
In The Kentucky Breeding Bird Atlas, author Brainard Palmer-Ball Jr. wrote “Robins have likely increased in response to human alteration of the landscape. The clearing and fragmentation of vast forested areas for rural and suburban settlement have likely created better habitat for robins, and very large populations have developed in settled areas throughout the state.”
Food Habits
In spring and summer, robins feed heavily on earthworms. Robins forage on the ground, running and pausing on open lawns and bare dirt. Keen vision helps them locate prey.
In spring and summer, robins feed on insects, earthworms, snails, spiders, other invertebrates. Young are fed mostly insects and earthworms.
Robins forage on the ground, running and pausing on open lawns and bare dirt. Keen vision helps them locate prey. When not nesting, they usually forage in flocks.
With the advance of cold weather, robins begin to feed heavily on fruits, mainly wild berries. Robin wintering grounds are typically big woodlands, where they can find berries to feed on and escape the cold. Some of the robin’s favorite winter foods are the berries on holly trees, sumac and hackberry.
Nesting
In Kentucky, nesting can begin as early as late March, if it’s warm enough.
Males arrive before females on nesting grounds and defend territories by singing, sometimes by fighting.
In the early stages of courtship, females may be actively pursued by one or several males.
Widely distributed and abundant, the American Robin (Turdus migratorius), is a member of the Thrush family. In folklore the American Robin is symbolic of impending warmer weather, and is believed to be a harbinger of Spring.
Females do most of the nest building with some help from males. Their nests are a cup of twigs and weed stems, with a solid foundation of mud, and lined with fine grass and plant fibers.
Nests are typically built in the fork of a tree limb, five to 25 feet above the ground. But robins also place their nests on buildings, sometimes houses, on porches and windowsills, providing a good view of the rearing of their young.
Their eggs are a distinctive pale blue, averaging about four to a nest. The eggs are incubated by the female for 12 to 14 days.
Both parents feed the young. The young leave the nest about 14 to 16 days after hatching.
Typically, pairs hatch off two broods per season, sometimes three.
West Nile Virus
Researchers have determined that robins have helped spread the West Nile Virus (WNV) across North America, since its introduction in 1999.
An article in the journal Science, by A. Marm Kilpatrick, implicated robins as a key disease vector. A decade of research on the ecology and evolution of WNV found that transmission in North America is highest in urbanized and agricultural habitats, in part because the hosts and vectors of WNV are abundant in human-modified areas.
The virus spreads through a few species of mosquitoes that usually feed on birds, and those bird species, become viral hosts. Researchers found that mosquitoes find robin blood particularly tasty, frequently feeding on them and turning them into viral “super-spreaders.”
Robins live in close proximity to humans, raising the odds that a mosquito that picked up the WNV feeding on a robin could transmit it to a person.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) there were 10 cases of WNV in Kentucky in 2017, which resulted in one death. California led the nation with 509 WNV cases and 28 deaths.
Art Lander Jr. is outdoors editor for KyForward. He is a native Kentuckian, a graduate of Western Kentucky University and a life-long hunter, angler, gardener and nature enthusiast. He has worked as a newspaper columnist, magazine journalist and author and is a former staff writer for Kentucky Afield Magazine, editor of the annual Kentucky Hunting & Trapping Guide and Kentucky Spring Hunting Guide, and co-writer of the Kentucky Afield Outdoors newspaper column.
