According to our new bird book there are two types of robins in the world. The American and the European.
The American Robin is a migratory song bird and is in the Thrush family, but it is named after the European bird because of the red breast. But other than that, there is no relation.
The American Robin is widely distributed all over North America. It is the state bird of Connecticut, Michigan and Wisconsin. There are several sub-species.
The robin is most active during the day and the male sings a lot in the morning. Their diet is mostly beetles, grubs, earthworms, caterpillars, fruits and berries. It is one of the earliest bird species to lay their eggs. They start to breed shortly after they return from their winter homes.
The Lazy Cow Bird will lay her eggs in a robin’s nest, if she can, but the robin will kick the eggs out if she can.
At our home over the years, we have had two family of robins to return and nest in our red maple trees. I see they’re out back now. They return late and leave early, they will be gone by the middle of August.
A few years back we were sitting in the front yard watching the traffic go by on SR 49, and the male robin had found an earthworm, but was having trouble getting him out of the ground. You could see the robin was tugging on the worm with all his might, but wasn’t gaining on the worm. The worm must have let go of his hold on the ground or he broke in two, as the bird fell over backwards from pulling so hard. But he got up on his feet and he still had part of the worm.
Mother nature puts on a show for us all day if we have time to watch it.
See ya!
