Date: 03/14/2001

Number: 1

American Robins do winter over in flocks in Maine. As you know, robins make a living eating fruit in the winter. We have had a very large number of wintering robins this year as we had an excellent year for fruit production, particularly in the south-west and mid-coast areas - where a lot of introduced and exotic fruiting plants such as bittersweet, crab apples and mountain ash grow. My assumption is that some of these birds are Maine birds and some may well be from further north. I would need to check the ornithology books to be sure. There have been a couple of recent postings that do report single robins "singing." We have had from 18 to 24 inches of snow in the past week, so I doubt there is much breeding going on. (Bird song is triggered by hormones. And those by either day length or shortness of dark, if I remember correctly.)

Falmouth, ME

Latitude: 43.8 Longitude: -70.3

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