Journey North Robin Migration

American Robin

NEWS FROM THE NORTHERN OBSERVATION POSTS
MARCH 13, 2007

Marc Landry: Beresford, NB
So far, the weather is very cold, We had a -40°C windchill for 2 days this week. The forecast is now calling for rain on Sunday the 11th and a temperature of 5° C. We have about 2 feet of snow on the ground. No robins yet... they usually arrive at the end of March and I hope that they will be on time again this year

Margot Hervieux, Grande Prairie, AB
In Grande Prairie we have had a more typical northern Alberta winter than the past few years but still warmer overall than I remember as a kid. Snow arrived at the end of October and we now have over 3 feet on the ground. We have had a couple of weeks of minus 30° Celsius but mostly lows of minus 15° to 20° and highs either side of minus 10°. With the equinox arriving in a couple of weeks we now have almost 12 hours of daylight and it isn't dark when I go to work at 8 a.m. anymore. Our first migrants are always Canada geese and we expect them by around the 15th even though we still have lots of snow.

Dominique Cloutier, St Sauveur des Monts, PQ
We had hardly any snow or cold until early February, since then it's been very cold and lots of snow ! No robin around.

Ute Keitsch, Port Hope, ON
We are just coming out our extreme Cold-snap. Today we had sunshine and less wind. Yesterday’s temperature was 8 below ZERO. The only birds I have now are a few Juncos, Goldfinches and Doves. Reports from my friends tell me that they heard Robins calling in Ajax (my former home town) but no singing yet. Things are looking up for this next week; we will be hitting 50° Fahrenheit. We are still covered in ice and snow. Walking is almost impossible!

Bruce Bennett, Whitehorse, YT
No sign of spring yet. Last week the temperatures ranged between -37°C
(-35°F) and -23°C (-9°F) — not counting wind chill of course. So far this year we have only had 1 day that reached above freezing and that was sometime in January. Today it is a little milder -19°C (-2°F) and expecting a high of -9°C (16°F) and it is snowing. At these temperatures I doubt you could stick a pick in the ground which is as hard as cement, much less see a tulip. There have been the occasional report of Northern Harriers, but other than that no spring birds have been reported in the territory. There have been reports of over wintering Trumpeter Swans but no American Robins or Bald Eagles. There is almost no open water at the moment. Happy spring to our friends in the south.

Stan White, Homer, Alaska
No Robins here on the southern tip of the Kenai Peninsula. The ground is frozen and completely covered by snow. We’ve had a lot of below zero weather lately, although it’s been pretty sunny, and now the sun has almost twelve hours to warm things up instead of the less than six hours in December; the air has even warmed up to above freezing on a few occasions lately! I teach in two separate schools this year. They are located about two and a half miles from each other; one is at sea level and the other is at about 500 feet elevation, which makes a big difference in the seasons at this latitude (59 degrees north). I often walk from one to the other and I hope to see some Robins earlier than usual this year at the lower elevation.