Educate Yourself About the American Robin and its Habitat
American Robin
The American Robin has a blackish head and nap, dark gray back, brick-red breast, and a blackish tail. Its length is 9-11in (23-28cm) Its wingspan is 17in (43cm) Its voice is a song of clear caroling with short phrases that rise and fall, the calls are “tyeep” and “tut-tut-tut”. Their eggs are blue with 2 or 3 clutches consisting of 4 (3-7) eggs. The female incubates for around 12-14 days, and fledging time is about 14-16 days. The female feed their young with some help from the male. The female has a lighter orange breast, and a largely gray head. During nesting season she might show a bald patch on the breast.
The American Robin use to be a forest bird, but now you can find them in suburbs, parks, and city streets throughout every state from the Atlantic to the Pacific. When you spot him, you know for sure that spring is here, and warmer days are ahead.
Most of the robins live year-round in almost every part of the country, and the birds that come to visit your lovely bird feeding garden in the winter time are usually migrants witch have moved from northern areas, while the summer residents have moved south.
During the winter time you can find these birds in large groups, often in numbers reaching hundreds, even as large as hundreds of thousands. In this season fruits make up for 80% of the robin’s diet, and fruits from trees like hollies, and crabapples are their favorites. They also like to feed on insects, such as termites, beetles, grasshoppers, caterpillars, but earthworms are on the top of their list.
Watching a keen-eyed robin hunting for an earth worm can be quite entertaining, as he stands erect with his head cocked before he snatches it, but this behavior has led people to believe that they are listening for the earthworm, but they are actually looking, and waiting for it to expose itself.
They are also extremely territorial, sometimes you can even see one fighting with its own shadow, as it appears on a sliding door window, or a side mirror on a car. They are not especially shy of nesting close to people, and are quick to take advantage of anything resembling a shelf hooked or nailed in to a secure and protected wall. Gutters and eves that are remarkably close to busy entrance ways will do excellent as well in a robin’s eye.
But they do prefer to build their nests in protected conifers, and later nesting couples will build their nests in deciduous trees, such as elms, and maples.
If you like to attract the American Robin to your lovely bird feeding garden, try planting crabapples, bayberry, grape, cherry, sumac, Hawthorne, elderberry, and other fruit-producing trees, and shrubs. Put out raisins, currants, grapes, apples, bananas, and bread on your bird feeding tables.
