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I am a little scared of the New Year 2011 already. And we’re only a day or two into it.
New Years morning at 9:30 am I am out snowblowing the 6 inches of freshly fallen snow in my driveway. The sun was beaming brightly with the temp a balmy 3 degrees and the wind chill running around -11. After doing my driveway I shut off my Craftsman and soaked up the solitude of a new snow and a new year. You can imagine my surprise to hear what I could swear was a Robin chirp. I knew I had a couple of cocktails the night before, but was in bed by 11:30 pm  and fully functioning New Years Day.Â
I took several steps down my driveway to focus on which tree the chirping was coming from. Sure enough from the top of our crab apple tree in our front yard perched a fluffed up orange breasted robin.
I have lived in Minnesota almost all of my 50+ years and have never seen a robin in the winter, yet much in Bemidji, Minnesota on a freezing January morning. I looked up on line and did find some stories of robins “overwintering” in the North, but most go to Mexico, Florida and along the Pacific coast.
A person starts wondering if this is some sort of sign, like “global warming”, or is it an indication of just how screwed up this year is going to be? I guess about 60% of a robins diet is from berries and seeds with the other 40% coming from bugs, worms and insects. (I can tell you for sure there are no worms out and about now). How does a robin decide to “overwinter”? (Sounds like a term used in the hospitality industry). Did it get “tricked” into staying by some other deceitful birds telling it how great the winters are in Minnesota?
At first I felt sorry for the bird and was tempted to go to TABERS BAIT and buy some maggots, or grubs for the bird. Then I decided to just yell at the bird (which the neighbors probably thought I was drunk from the night before) telling the robin to “Get Out of Here…go to Minneapolis”. The thing just stared back and chirped. I think it was asking to borrow my stocking cap.
l have had a robin here all winter and even stranger i had a morning dove at my feeders 2 weeks ago i have the prove as u on my camera with the date good luck to us birders happy new year
oh ya i live by moorhead minnesota
I was sitting in a parking lot in mpls. and seen a flock of 15 robins in a tree on 1/5/11
I have seen a robin 2 times in th trees close to my house. Several times have seen a pair of cardinals at my bird feeders! Beautiful!!
I feed the birds every year and find myself watching more closely for the cardinals & robin. A couple other people have spotted them too.. Maybe soon the cardinals will be a part of our regular birds. Several years I have had just the female cardinal before, only one other year I had seen the male…
Mike, I know you from way back. Two cocktails? 11:30 bedtime on New Year’s Eve? Robin sighting in the morning? Was Santa Claus there, too?
tee hee
I live in Indiana and we have been seeing flocks of maybe a hundred birds or more in the town I live in (Fisher) and in the next town over where I work. I have never, in all my 27 years in Indiana, seen a robin in the winter let alone such large flocks of them. We don’t really even have any woods to speak of in this area it’s all been developed. It seems very odd to me!
I know what you mean about seeing flocks of birds in the winter…today 1/26/2011 I herd birds outside my back deck sure enough go to look and I see a ton of robin’s and there were also yellow finches and a few wood peckers and I even saw a black bird?? And I thought to myself…wow in the month of January now towards the end we have birds comming back already?? They must know something as I never see them till around mid to late Feb is when I did notice last year them comming back..I felt sorry for them so I threw out some bread for them to eat as I don’t have any bird food. I think I am going to go buy a bird feeder and feed them.
Forgot to mention that my above where I was from…Northwest Indiana Lake County