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Well? Does anyone else have something to say? Maybe I've been a little too impertinent in my abstract to warrant a serious response. Oh well, win some, lose some, your loss, my gain. 
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Joined: Sep 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891 |
Allo Milum What do you mean they become husbands when the gang breaks up in the spring? Do the females fly elsewhere in the winter? It'd be interesting to know if some of the birds go out to look for feeding grounds and lead the flock to them. Let me go see if I can find anything on the net. ============================== I found this cool site while looking on the net to see if I could find an answer to my question about the foraging. Cornell Lab of Ornithology
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Good site Bel, this part, in particular, is right down my alley... Quote:
Where Have All the Robins Gone?
What happened to all the robins? I’m not seeing them any more.
Each year in late summer and fall, robins leave the territories where they’ve raised their young. They spend fall and winter in flocks, traveling to places where they can find more food. In fall, we receive questions from people in some areas who are wondering where the robins have gone, and questions from people elsewhere who are incredulous because they’ve been inundated with large flocks of robins.
By flocking, the robins benefit by having more eyes to look out for predators and to find food. You probably won’t see individual robins again until spring when the demands of finding and defending a territory cause them to leave the flock and strike out on their own.
Although robins are one of the most familiar and widespread birds in North America, their patterns of movement are poorly understood. In fall, their migrations are often influenced by the availability of fruit, but in spring they move in response to the availability of soil invertebrates, such as earthworms. Their numbers in particular places may vary from year to year.
Robin sightings reported by participants of the Great Backyard Bird Count show that robins tend to avoid areas with deep snow cover. This makes sense, since they often search for food in the soil.
In Feburary I was amazed to see several hundred robins flocking about in the trees and grounds of the Huntsville Alabama library. At first I mistook them for Red-breasted Blackbirds (which, in a taxonomic way, that's what they are) but I was told that Red-breasted Blackbirds are particular to the western states so I guess they were robins.
No, Bel, I can't well sex flocking winter birds but it is known that some bands of crop destructive blackbirds are made up of only young unattached males.
I will elaborate later.
Thanks for your interest.
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I was quite curious about what bird you meant when you were talking about robins.
There wasn't any specific clasification for "robin" so I started at the top and found "american Robin." It's what we call a "merle d'Amérique" (the merle of America) or "rouge gorge" (red throat).
I've never seen a flock of robins. It must be beautiful. Robins are seldom seen here. It's a happy thing to see a robin. Seeing two together is rare enough that you'll tell the folks at work when you get to the office.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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We see no robins here. I see cormorants sometimes, cattle egrets, pearl-eyed thrashers, hummingbirds, a few parrot-beaked anis, a woodpecker that is endemic to this part of the Caribbean, some sea eagles and hawks I don't know the proper names of but if you go into the mangrove swamps in winter, you find all types of water dependent snow birds.
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Pooh-Bah
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Joined: Aug 2002
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Good heavens, I thought the snowbirds would be on the beaches.
(Canadian term for retired folk who head south every year at the first hint of frost)
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Same in Michigan, Zed, but they were named after the birds not vice versa. We've got the human ones here, too, and they are on the beaches and in the hotels and clogging up the roads, etc. etc. 
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Carpal Tunnel
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>>>We've got the human ones here, too, and they are on the beaches and in the hotels
Phewf, good thing to hear Consuelo. Zed and I were about to mount a rescue operation to save our old folks from the swamps.
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Blackbirds fly east into the morning sun, they don't contemplate, they just fly. Some take position in the uppermost limbs of the barren winter trees while most feed on the ground. You, the few folks here who care, must reason why some of this gathering of birds are willing to forgo feeding for the common good. Your answers, as members of a communal group of strange animals, will contribute towards our understanding of the nature of the cultural import of life. Don't you think?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Quote:
Don't you think?
Of course I think. Every Saturday, need it or not.
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