A flock of robins

By TINA SPANGLER

Spring arrived with a startle at my cottage in Luxton Lake on February 20 at 9:00 a.m. With the thermometer reading 20 degrees and snow flurries in the air, the last thing I expected to see fluttering outside my window was a robin. Let alone a flock of them. But sure enough, a quick look at my Audubon Field Guide confirmed the full orange breast, yellow bill and white tail vents as the American Robin. And they were everywhere: outside the living room, the office, the bedroom. But why? Had spring arrived already? Or was there some other reason for this happy preview of April?

The largest member of the thrush family, the robins looked gargantuan compared to the downright puny chickadees and finches flitting back and forth to the feeder. The robin is about 10 inches from the tip of the beak to the end of the tail, and has a foot-wide wingspan. Although their presence is considered the first harbinger of spring, the American robin actually will winter in northern areas like ours, providing there is enough food to get by. While in the summer they dine on earthworms and insects, in the winter their diet consists mainly of fruit.

The flock at my house flapped to the tips of the sumac trees, where they pecked at the velvety red clusters. Others balanced their girth on the delicate shrub branches in order to pluck the end-of-winter berries. Some seemed content to forage atop the ice-encrusted snow.

I basked in their presence, remembering the excitement of their arrival as I was growing up in Wisconsin. Back then I thought robins were unique to my home, since they were my official state bird (I later discovered, residents of Michigan and Connecticut can claim the same). This morning, they seemed to come and go for hours, their numbers impossible to estimate. But when Sadie, our bulldog, stepped out onto the porch, their wide wings took them high into the trees and off to the west. Because robins sing when they arrive at their breeding territory, I hope next time I see them they’ll be whistling their familiar tune: “cheerily, cheer up, cheer up, cheerily, cheer up.” And then I’ll know it’s spring for real.