Red Deer River Naturalists

The Red Deer river Naturalists are a group dedicated to learning about and preserving natural history. They have regular programs with speakers and many field trips.

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Sunday, April 17, 2011

Large Flocks of Robins at Red Deer

       The past two days I have seen unusually large flocks of robins in my neighborhood. It's been cold and snowing for a week. Yesterday there were twenty robins in one tree, twelve in another and seven in another. This was seen from my yard. Who knows if I'd had time to walk through my neighborhood maybe I would have found a mother lode?

Photo by Judy Boyd
       I am used to seeing large flocks of robins in the fall as they are on they're way south. I don't ever remember seeing a large group like this in the spring. In the spring they usually come through as individuals. I am starting to wonder if they are held up here because of the snowy weather. On the other hand maybe I'm going to have lots of robin nests in my neighborhood this summer if summer ever gets here.

4 comments:

  1. I have been asking people about this unusual flocks of robins in Red Deer this snowy weekend in April. They ate all the berries off my mountain ash tree. I used to think before that this tree was useless (or alien) because no birds fed on its berries,until this weekend. I have been thinking why and here's my hypothesis: the recent numerous tornadoes in the US drove them up the prairie north.

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  2. I agree the flocks are rather large for the spring migration. We see robins in every month of the year at Red Deer. They eat Mountain ash berries as well as many other native species such as rose hip. The Bohemian waxwings really like the Mountain as berries. The mountain ash is not a native species and worries me because it establishes very easily in our native woods. Bower Woods is full of Mountain AsH
    Robins are early migrants. The males come first to find breeding territories so all the robins we saw this week end were males.
    Birds are very senstive to weather fronts and use weather fronts to ease their migration. The tornadoes this week have been well away from where these robins wood have flown.

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  3. Monday we walked around the neighbourhood in edmonton and saw about 15 robins all in close proximity to one another, 6 to 8 in one tree sounding a beautiful choir. Tonight though they seem to have dispersed and we saw only a few. Hugs!

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  4. These robins will spread out. When I lived on the Mackenzie delta in the 60's there were robins so some of these have a long way to go yet. They've now seen robins on Banks Island. So much for global warming doubters!
    Thanks for visiting Natural Wise.

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