Journey North Robin Migration

American Robin

NEWS FROM THE NORTHERN OBSERVATION POSTS
April 22, 2008

Kris Owens: Fireweed Academy, Homer, AK
Here are some quotes from Fireweed students (Brendan, Mina, Brian, Celeste, Jessica, Jimmy) and staff (Kris) about signs of spring we have been noticing. Hope YOU are experiencing more signs than we are!

Mina: It is freezing and melting all the time. We can finally start seeing the ground. More outdoor activities. Moths and flies are showing up! Oh no… the bugs are coming back!!! The Shorebird festival is just a couple of weeks away. (We haven’t seen any migrating shorebirds yet, but they should be here soon.)
Brendan: Muddy! The mud puts me in a bad mood…It’s April!
Brian: Camp Robbers (Canadian Jays) are around.
Celeste: It is getting warmer and warmer. The temperature is supposed to get near 50 degrees Fahrenheit this weekend.
Brendan: People are adventuring across the bay more. “Break-up” [ice] is here.
Brian: More fishing is going on.
Kris: Melting, melting, melting, and then freezing. More daylight! Our photoperiod is approaching 15 hours. The radiometer is spinning like crazy! It only snowed twice this week! Maybe spring is really here.
Jessica: The playground smells like fertilizer.
Jimmy: The playground is very wet!
Khadicha: In town it is spring but up near Ohlsen Mountain it is still winter.
Devin: The snowshoe hares are changing over. They’re half white and half brown. The coyotes can see them more easily now.

Marc Landry: Beresford, NB
Wacky weather here! Today the weather is nice. Temperature of 17°C today but cooling for the weekend with snow and rain. We still have 2 feet of snow on the ground and robins are struggling to find bare patches. Even with all this snow, robins are every where. No singing yet.

Douglas Phillips: Nipawin, SK
First robin sighted in back yard 10 a.m. on April 15th, much to the annoyance of the many Redpoles and Juncos at our feeders ! Snow banks still evident along driveways and in the trees.

Crows and horned larks were first spring birds here March 13th.
Ducks and geese migrating north since April 5
Sandhill cranes seen on April 10.
First dandelions in flower April 15.
Our tulips and daffodils are 3 inches high. A beautiful Spring following a very snowy winter !!

Pam Randles: Haines, AK
We have had some rough weather for the last week or so - rain and snow and wind. There have not been new arrivals of birds. The forecast is for more sun for the next few days, so hopefully we will get spring weather. Hummingbirds are close, so we should see them soon, although the weather is not good yet. There is still snow on the ground, but it is going. Haven't heard any robins singing yet.

Margot Hervieux: Grande Prairie, AB
We are now buried under at least 6 inches of snow (April 21) and it is supposed to stay below 0 celcius all week. The robins may hold off on singing for a few days yet.

Bruce Bennett, Whitehorse, YT
We had a huge northerly blast yesterday with 3 inches of fresh snow. It was -11C this morning and we reached a high of -3C. It is continuing to blow from the north and we are expecting a nighttime temperature of -16C tonight and a high of -2C tomorrow. Since there was a white-out last night we had no reports of any birds, but luckily no accidents either. There still are no spring passerines with the exception of a couple of reports of American Tree Sparrows, a few Northern Shrikes and 1 lone Barn Swallow on April 2nd (not seen since). There are a few hardy American Crows that arrived on March 31st and at least one of three is still alive.

The river has opened a little more, but all the lakes are still frozen and all the open slopes are now blanketed with a fresh covering of snow. There was one report of a single flower (prairie crocus Pulsatilla patens) last Sunday which is 5 days early and I haven’t been able to confirm.

There are quite a few Herring Gulls, a couple of ducks, but they are still way done, no more than a couple of pairs in total except for Common Goldeneye that are in the 100’s. We have ~800 Trumpeter Swans and 3 Tundra Swans.

There are no insects. I saw a moth and someone reported a fly, but really doesn’t seem like spring at the moment.

Usually by now there are Mountain Bluebirds, the occasional American Robin and several types of sparrows including Dark-eyed Junco, but apart from those listed above you would think it was February or March, not nearly May.

There are still flocks of Common Redpolls all over the place though. They are really the only common bird at the moment, besides the Trumpeter Swans.

April has been proclaimed Biodiversity Awareness Month in Yukon and activities are occurring throughout Yukon Celebrating Spring. Click here for more information on Spring activities in Yukon.