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Frequently
Asked Questions about Robins: Wintering
Q.
What do robins wintering in the north eat?
A. Robins switch diets in fall. They turn from earthworms to berries
and other fruits. Because some forms of fruit (such
as mountain ash berries and crab apples) remain
available all winter long even in the north, a few robins can stay in an
area with food enough to support them all winter. These robins are most
often found in areas where there is a bit of open water from a nearby spring,
stream, river, or large lake, and where there are fruit trees. The water
and fruit get them through the season. Q.
Doesn't a robin know enough to migrate south? I live
in Canada (or one of the northern states). There is a robin wintering
in my neighborhood.
A. Robins are a migratory species, but their migration is far more
complicated than simply a shift southward. There seems to be a great deal
of individual variation in where they spend the winter, though males are
far more likely to remain in the north than females. There are good reasons.
Come spring, the male’s main job is to find and defend a territory.
The females’ main job is to create and lay the eggs. This requires
a lot of good nutrition and food energy, so females go where they are
sure of good food supplies in winter. Yes, they have to use up food energy
to migrate north. But migrating and laying eggs are easier for well-nourished
birds.
Q.
Won't the cold hurt robins?
There are robins staying
in our town in Ontario all winter. Next week the temperatures are supposed
to be lower than 20 below zero.
A. Cold temperatures don't hurt most birds—as long as they
have food. As nights grow cooler during fall, northern birds start growing
more down feathers close to their bodies. These feathers work like a down
jacket. The down feathers insulate the birds, keeping the heat of their
bodies inside. The robins make their body heat by shivering; as long as
they have food to give them energy, they can survive extreme cold.
Q.
Should I be feeding a robin wintering in my backyard?
I live in northern Minnesota.
A. Robins only spend the winter in areas where there is some food
available, so feeding them isn't necessary. Nevertheless, a lot of people
enjoy offering them food, creating a special bond with this homey and pleasant
bird. Robins will NOT take birdseed. Sometimes they'll take frozen fruit,
though it's often hard to teach them that fruit in a feeder is food! (Robins
learn at an early age that fruit grows on trees and shrubs. They simply
do not expect to find it anywhere else.) One of the best kinds of food for
wintering robins—and the easiest for them to discover—is mealworms.
You can put out a dozen mealworms on a sunny day when the temperature is
above freezing, and nearby robins will often notice their wiggly movements
and investigate. Once robins discover the mealworms, they'll come back even
when the temperature is below freezing and the mealworms are stiff. Then
if you start offering fruit in the same spot, the robins are more likely
to notice it. Some favorite robin foods are blueberries, raspberries, and
strawberries. You might as well buy bags of frozen fruit for them, since
it will freeze outside anyway!
Mike Houle developed this heated birdbath system for feeding his wintering robins.
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One
of Journey North's correspondents from Wisconsin used a heated
bird
bath to
keep mealworms thawed and moving. He thought this would allow him
to feed his whole flock of wintering robins, but one of the robins
took over
and defended the bird bath food source against all the other robins
in his yard. This arrangement still helped the other robins, who
were
sharing
the fruit
on neighborhood
trees, because now there was one fewer bird to share with, and
it made the one
particular robin VERY happy!
Q.
Do robins need water in the winter?
A.
In northern climaes where ponds, rivers, streams
and lakes freeze ove in the winter, a bird's most available
water source is often snow. But it tkaes energy to melt
snow. Birds needs to drink and, if possible, bathe even
in the winter. Dirty feathers lose much of their insulating
properties, so a clean bird is a warm bird. If you have
a heated birdbath and worry about birds bathing and then
being unable to fly off in sub-zero weather when the
water freezes on them, you can modify the birdbat. to
allow them to drink but
not bathe. Cover the top of your birdbath with a pice
of plastic-coated quarter- or half-inch hardware cloth.
Or lace twigs or small branches across the top. Either
method will allow the birds to stay dry while they drink
through the openings.
Q.
This winter we have seen them by the dozens and hundreds! Why?
We live in Texas
(also asked by Florida residents) and aren't used to seeing robins.
A.
The robins have likely dropped in because they discovered a rich food source.
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