A Little Cross-species Bathing...Not That There's Anything Wrong With That...

Mind you, I'm as tolerant as they come. I was running errands at CSU Stanislaus today and found that there were puddles all over the place from last night's rather intense storm. I could see in the distance that some birds were joyfully splashing around. As usual I had my camera so I focused in and saw that they were Cedar Waxwings (Bombycilla cedrorum). But something was off...the bird in back was a lot bigger.

A second later the two birds separated and looked my way. And if looks could kill, I would have been in trouble...that Cedar Waxwing was romping in the water with an American Robin (Turdus migratorious)! The scandal of it all!

 Ah, to each their own, I say. I carried on with my errands.

American Robins Nesting in St. Louis Area

American Robins (Turdus migratorius) are of course one of the most familiar birds in North America, although I don't see them all that often where I live in the Central Valley, with the exception of my MJC Mini-wilderness where more than a thousand wintered last year.  On my recent trip to the St. Louis area they turned up just about everywhere, and were the most visible bird I saw during my visit.

Two of them were nesting, one outside our hotel, and the other just outside the foyer where the wedding was taking place. If the bird was panicked about the dozens of people milling just below, it gave no sign.

A couple of posts are coming in quick order, as I am "clearing the decks" for my overseas journey to the Hawaiian Islands. There may be many birds to see, but probably little time to post!

American Robins at Lava Beds National Monument

Lava Beds National Monument in the far northern reaches of California is a unique park for many reasons, biologically and geologically. And sometimes both. The park is "nothing more" than a vast field of geologically recent lava flows (I say "nothing more", because to a geologist like me, that's all the justification one needs to make a park out of it). The lava flows are honeycombed with lava tubes and craters, cinder cones and pressure ridges, and historical sites dating from the Modoc Indian Wars.

There's one thing the park doesn't have: water. Although the region is semiarid, it gets enough snow and rain to support growths of Ponderosa and Pinyon pines. But the water that falls on the surface quickly sinks into the joints and fractures that are pervasive in the basalt flows. There are no rivers, streams or lakes. That can make life difficult for the various animals that would normally inhabit these environments. One of those species are human beings. The Modoc people were able to utilize the waters of Tulelake at the north end of the monument. The lake is gone now, converted to agricultural fields, but park visitors can find water at faucets in the campground. It's pumped from a thousand-foot well. The water spills to the ground, and the local birds know all about it. They gather in the morning at the monument campground and take turns getting a drink. I didn't know this until I heard the caterwauling early in the morning while I was trying to sleep.

I got my camera and took a seat near the water faucets and saw a parade of birds, some of which were new to me. But not this one. The American Robin (Turdus migratorius) is one of the most familiar birds in North America. But that doesn't take away from their attractive appearance.

These birds were high up in the Cascades in September when I took these pictures, but they might be part of a migratory group that will arrive in the Great Valley in the next few weeks. Hundreds of them wintered in the mini-wilderness on our campus last year.

There were three more species waiting for water those mornings at Lava Beds. Look for the others in future posts.

Bird of the Day: Wondering Where Your Robins Went For the Winter? They're Here!

I was back on campus this week preparing for the new semester. I haven't had many opportunities to check up on the activities in our little campus mini-wilderness, a drainage pond in a small pasture and oak/eucalyptus woodland that is sometimes used for grazing sheep, but which is usually ignored. It's been a pretty good site for seeing birds during lunchtime walks, but today it was positively hopping with bird life.

I thought from a distance that the swarming flocks were Brewer's or Red-winged Blackbirds. As I got closer I realized that they had red breasts. The hundreds, maybe thousands of birds were American Robins (Turdus migratorius)! I've never seen so many in one place.

The American Robin is of course one of the most common birds in North America, with an estimated population of around 300 million. Many of those from the north country migrate into the southern states and California for the winter. Apparently this crew likes our area for overwintering, or at least a brief stop. We'll see if they're still around in the coming weeks.

Bird of the Day: American Robin at Zumwalt Meadows, Kings Canyon National Park

Among the quickest lessons I learned as I set out to learn about birds is that the species that were most familiar to me turned out to be more beautiful than I ever thought. There is hardly a bird more familiar than the American Robin (Turdus migratorius), and I enjoy seeing them around here, but last weekend I was walking quietly around Zumwalt Meadow in Kings Canyon National Park and I saw a colorful bird flit through the tree branches. I crept slowly forward, saw it, and thought "Oh, just a Robin".

What do you mean, "just a Robin"?

But it didn't startle and sat watching me while I tried to snap a picture or two. They were fuzzy and I gave up and wandered along the trail a few yards, but then I decided to step back and see if I could do better. It was still there, so I started snapping from just 20 or so feet away. I could swear it was posing, because after a moment it turned around so I could see it from the front and side.

The American Robin is familiar because it has one of the widest distributions of any bird in the hemisphere, being found from the tundra of Alaska and Canada to the tropical rainforests of Mexico and Central America. There are some regional differences; I had always wondered why they were called "Robin Red-Breast" when they were clearly orange, but I find that the western race of Robins is paler in color than the ones in the eastern United States.

The Robin at Zumwalt Meadow seemed pretty fearless. It stayed right there on its branch until I walked away. It has to put up with a lot more in this area than the occasional house cat. There are foxes, bobcats, coyotes, hawks, and who knows what else. I imagine it will start moving down into the Sierra foothills before long. The leaves are turning up in Kings Canyon and the snows will be coming soon, assuming and hoping that the drought breaks.

Really? Just a Robin?