Robins are harbingers of spring, which officially arrived almost three weeks ago. So where is the spring weather, and where are the robins?

It’s April, the daffodil month, and winter still refuses to loosen its headlock on much of the country.

Out my front window I see a lake with an ice cover seemingly determined to become permanent. A winter breeze scours it before climbing the shoreline embankment to fondle my house. Its icy fingers probe the smallest cracks and crannies and I feed the woodstove another log from the seriously diminished woodpile.

The weather forecasters offer little relief. They predict small shots of sun and warmth interspersed with bursts of abnormal cold and wet throughout April. We are getting one of those small warmer shots this week, but no real, sustained spring warmth is expected until May.

The winter-like conditions don’t mean we won’t be seeing robins for a while. There is growing evidence that more robins are staying in northern regions during winter.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology says robins now are wintering in every U.S. state except Hawaii and every Canadian southern provincial area.

Also, data from feeder watch programs show robin visitation rates in northern Canada rising steadily. Average winter flock sizes have been increasing as well.

Program FeederWatch, where people count birds in their yards and post results online, reported robins at 59 per cent of Ontario sites during the 2020-21 winter. That compares with 27 per cent 1989, the project’s first year.

There is no solid evidence of why more robins are wintering in the north. One theory is simply that winters are becoming milder.

What we do know is robins are not afraid of winter weather. They maintain a body temperature of 40 Celsius no matter how cold it is. They shiver to generate body heat and fluff their feathers as a shield against cold and snow.

They can handle winter, but what they can’t handle is lack of staple foods that become unavailable in winter. Worms, bugs and other little invertebrates favoured by robins disappear when the cold arrives and snow covers the ground.

Many thousands of robins continue to migrate south in winter, but researchers are discovering that some are staying behind and surviving by changing their diet. They turn to summer leftovers – berries, currents and other small fruits left on vines, shrubs and trees long after summer showers have become snow storms.

Berries and other small fruits are not something we think about during winter. But if you go looking, you’ll find berries on trees and shrubs such as crab apple, juniper, hawthorn, yew, mountain ash, chokecherry and bearberry.

Seeds also are plentiful in winter but robins don’t digest seeds well and don’t have bills designed for cracking. That’s why they don’t often visit bird feeders.

Robins that stay north in winter are not seen as frequently as they are in summer. That’s because berries and other winter fruits are not abundant and the birds have to move about to find them.

Robins are not just symbols of spring, they represent different signs in different cultures – everything from the promise of spring, to the threat of storms and even death.

Many Indigenous people have viewed the robin as a spiritual bird, a symbol of hope and rebirth and a sign of love and good family life. Some have seen robins as spirit guides helping them to understand visions.

Robin symbolism is found throughout Christianity. There is one story, wrongly attributed to the Bible, which tells of a little bird plucking a thorn from Christ’s forehead when he was being crucified. A drop of Christ’s blood fell on the bird’s breast, staining it red. That bird became the red-breasted robin.

Mother Teresa, the missionary named Saint Teresa of Calcutta by the Catholic Church, related that legend in her 1977 book No Greater Love.

“Each of us should try and be that bird – the little robin,” she wrote. “When we see someone in pain, we must ask ourselves: What can I do to give them comfort?”

Whatever the symbolization, we’ll soon be seeing robins hunting bugs and worms on grassy patches and we’ll know that a long, tough winter finally has given way to summer sunshine and warmth.

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When the red, red . . .

 Now you see them, now you don’t. 

The robins were everywhere until recently. Listening and pecking for worms beside the house. Flitting branch to branch back in the woods as they searched for any remaining mountain ash or other berries. 

Hardly a day would pass without seeing several or more. Now there is none to be found.

 Some say the disappearance of the robins foretells an early winter. When they sense snow and cold moving in, they move out.  I’m not sure that is totally accurate. 

Although robins are considered migratory birds I think of them as nomads. They don’t follow the consistent north-in-spring, south-in-autumn paths of most birds. They wander off track stopping wherever they find food. 

That’s why I was seeing so many of them earlier this month. Rains and morning dew brought out the worms, and there were still some berries left on bushes. Colder temperatures and some frost have changed that, so the robins have moved on to find more profitable locations. 

Many people see robins as delicate, pretty little birds that travel south early to avoid dying in the cold. However, they are tough birds who are being seen more often in northern regions during winter. 

Their outer feathers block wind and snow, while softer downy inside feathers provide insulation that helps them maintain their body temperature, which is 104 Fahrenheit. 

Project FeederWatch, a research project gathering data on winter bird populations, has reported that more robins are hanging around later in northern regions.   

It said that during the 2015-16 winter robins visited 11 per cent of winter backyard feeders in northern parts of Canada and in Alaska. That compared with only six per cent of winter visitations in 1989-90. 

One of the reasons could be climate change, and the fact that Canadian winter temperatures have been getting milder over recent decades. Urban landscaping might be another reason why more robins are being seen later in the year. 

Fruit trees and berry-producing shrubs and bushes have become popular with people  landscaping their town and city homes. Robins are mainly fruit eaters in winter, so if there is more of it to be found in built-up areas, they will be there. 

Robins originally were a forest species but they have adapted well to a changing landscape, which has seen forests shrinking and urban areas expanding. 

Many of us see robins as fairly solitary birds, hopping about alone, or sometimes with a mate. But serious bird watchers say that they tend to flock during the fall months. In southern areas they have been seen in flocks of hundreds. 

Flocking gives robins more eyes and ears to find food and some extra warmth if they crowd together in trees. 

Being in a crowd also offers some protection from predators. Although it is hard to imagine anything wanted to hurt these friendly songbirds, they have enemies, including crows, jays, hawks and a variety of other aggressive birds. 

Robins don’t seem to fear humans, although they are cautious and will attack if someone approaches their nest, especially if it contains babies. They have been known to come close to humans exposing worms when the dig in a garden or water a lawn. 

They do pose an indirect threat to humans because they are carriers of West Nile virus. 

Other West Nile carriers such as crows and jays die quickly from the virus, but robins survive it longer, therefore passing it along to more mosquitoes, which can infect humans. 

The robin also is an impostor, although not through its own fault. It is named the American Robin, but in fact is not a robin at all. It is a thrush and has no relation to the European Robin. 

Early American settlers who first encountered the bird called it a robin because of its reddish breast, which was similar to the European Robin commonly called Robin Red Breast in England. Other than that, there is little resemblance to the European bird, which is a member of the flycatcher family. 

If climate change does bring more milder winters we may see more robins during the winter months. That’s a good thing because there are few birds that provide as much pleasure with their vast repertoires of song.  

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