Re: [IRCA] Robins say spring is coming

["John Callarman" <JohnCallarman@xxxxxxx>]

Cholly wrote:
"Three days ago, I saw a flock of some 12 robins pause next door and commence to chow down on some berries from the trees there. Robins are 
supposed to be checked out on the coming of Spring, and NC is not within their wintering area."

I would never question either the wit or the wisdom of either CAT or Der Kashketfeller, but David Allen Sibley does (at least of the former). The American Robin, according to Sibley's map, is found year around in all but the Canadian border areas of the United States. But only in Florida and southern areas of Georgia, Texas, Arizona and California can you expect the same robins to live year around.

Those who summer in Alaska and in and near the Arctic Circle in Canada aren't used to human neighbors, and when they fly south for the winter to the temperate climes of the Red River Valley along the Dakota/Minnesota border or the other one along the Oklahoma/Texas border, they habituate remote areas. One can only expect to find the arctic robins in cities when they've eaten all the available food in the wild.

When I was a newspaper editor in Illinois, I had to humor the callers who would see the first robin of the year in January or February. T'ain't news, I'd tell 'em. They've just run out of food on the farm or in the woods, I'd tell 'em.

Cholly, they didn't believe me, either.

Which brings up the question of how one goes about QSL'ing the tiny transmitters ornithologists attach to our feathered friends to track their annual pilgrimages.

Qal R. Mann, Krumudgeon

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