Date: 03/20/2006

Number: 1

Now that spring is finally here and the Robins have made their ways down from the trees and onto the lawns, I'd like to make a few comments concerning robings in Guelph. Since I first reported robins singing in early February, I have heard them on several occasions since. It was always scattered or truncated versions of the song often sung by many birds at a time. Usually the singing accompanied their chirping and chattering (which they don't seem to stop).

About three weeks ago (maybe a little more) there was a widespread - but not complete - movement from out of their forested areas down into the main city again.
The movement seems to be complete, although there have only been a couple cases of what I would consider territorial singing.

There seemed to be no huge correlation between weather and singing in the winter time, except that they did not sing when the temperature was extremely cold.
However, since
their singing did not always persist for very long, I can't rule out that some birds sang on days I didn't observe them in my few hours of walking.

A few interesting things came up though. I have come to the conclusion that the robins in fact never left Guelph. By my estimations there were between 150 and 400 in this small city (about 100,000 people). Even for southwestern Ontario that is very strange.
I am not aware of many other reports (from my many birding friends) of over-wintering Robins and certainly nothing with those numbers. In fact, in my time here last year, I also noticed robins in the winter in the same area. It seems that Guelph has a couple things going for it in keeping robins around. First is that the city is dissected by two rivers. By default that means there is alot of land that is not suitable for development.
Guelph is also a very "green" city in that its occupants on average are much more supportive of green space within the city than the "average city".

Aside from that space (there are lots of wooded areas that don't support winter robins here) there are a couple more factors that seem to have contributed to this.
One is that these
riverways were not always left alone and as of a few decades ago were cleared. That means that instead of native riparian species, the main component of Guelph's waterways is invasive buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica) which in some areas constitues nearly 100 percent of the cover. It seems that the robins have been making much use out of buckthorn berries as winter food. Also, since all this prime winter area is so close to the prime summer area, perhaps it was just easier to stay.
Contributing to what
might be a better-than-average summer ground are a university run "turf farm" and a large arboretum full of those lawns that robins like.

Just a few thoughts...

Guelph, ON

Latitude: 43.3 Longitude: -80.2

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