click on images for a closer look
Say hello to Turdus migratorius – the American Robin. And
state bird of our fair state (and Michigan and Connecticut too). This
songbird is known as a harbinger of spring and they've arrived for the breeding season and are showing-up on the trail cameras.
They're active during daylight hours hopping
around the grass in search of grubs and earthworms. Males chirp a song that sounds sort of
like: cheerily cheerup. American robins are one of the first birds to
lay eggs in the spring with a clutch of three to five bright blue eggs at
a time. This bird is capable of rearing three broods in a single nesting season however less than half of all nests successfully produce young. Only twenty-five percent of fledglings survive to November and only half of any given population survives to the following year.
A migrating member of the thrush
family - its name is a consequence of the European robin and its reddish breast
even though the two species are not closely related.
If the conditions are favorable some American
Robins spend the entirety of winter in their breeding range – something not
observed here. In the fall this bird is
known to gorge on fruit. If they get
into a batch of rotting honeysuckle berries they sometimes become tipsy.
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