"Fleeing the Nor'easter?" wondered a Virginia observer who reported a wave of robins on Feb. 9. Indeed, wave reports outnumbered other types of robin sightings during the past two weeks. Did robins move in response to dwindling food supplies and
harsh weather? Here's a sample of what you've reported:
- Maryland: "Our back yard has been overcome by about 120 robins in the last 15 minutes. They are eating and making lots of noise. Hanging around in the trees, then feeding on the ground, then back to the trees."
- Florida: "They started coming in like in the Alfred Hitchcock movie "The Birds"! A constant stream in the sky, and landing in the wetlands area. This went on for 35 minutes. About 5000 in all!"
- Tennessee: "For the past the days the skies over Inglewood have been full of robins...Literally hundreds of thousands if not more. You can drive for several miles and the robins are still thick in the sky, not to mention the yards and fields."
Florida has mapped the most "wave" reports since Jan. 1., followed by Virginia, Texas, and Indiana. Since Feb. 1, the map has picked up 42 reports of FIRST robins—in 22 states and one province (AB).
|Please continue to report your sightings. Citizen scientists help tell how robins are faring, and what their movements might mean.