In the fall the mildness of a season may cause November migrants to remain into December, or an open winter may tempt those that habitually migrate only a short distance to remain north of their usual winter range.
DESCRIPTIONS AND BIOGRAPHIES
THE AMERICAN ROBIN
Thrush Family—Turdidæ
Length: 10 inches.
Male: Head black; bill yellow; a white spot above and below eye; throat white, streaked with black; back and wings gray; tail black, with white spots near tips of outer feathers; white beneath tail; entire breast and sides reddish-brown; color less brilliant in autumn and winter, and bill darker.
Young Female: Paler than male.
Young: Similar to female, except for speckled breasts and backs.
Call-note: A sharp tut, used to express anger or alarm; also a sweet tender note, with which it encourages its young or converses with its mate.
Song: A loud, clear morning song, Cheer-up, cheer-up, cheer-up, cheer-up, sweeter and more subdued toward evening. The song varies decidedly with different individuals. Many robins seem to enjoy improvisations; we may hear them sing their somewhat monotonous strain with pleasing variations. During their sojourn in the South they sing but little, and live in flocks remote from human habitations; consequently they are not loved as they are in the North.
Range: North America, breeding from the tree-limit south to the northern part of the Gulf States and Mexican tableland; in winter, to Florida and the highlands of Guatemala.
None of our birds is so well-known and so universally beloved as the robin. He, together with the song sparrow and the bluebird, arrives at a time when we are weary of winter and yearning for spring. He seems to show so much eagerness to return to us that he receives a hearty welcome. He is the first bird that we knew in childhood, unless it be the English sparrow; our earliest books were filled with tales and poems concerning him. Most of us have a fund of anecdotes that we could relate.
ROBIN
A robin has distinct individuality. His is a many-sided nature. He is cheerful and optimistic, aggressive and fearless, pugnacious and ardent—like the brave Lochinvar, “so daring in love and so dauntless in war,”—yet withal tender, joyous, and lovable. He is a fighter at mating time, but a gentle husband.
There are few bird-choruses as sweet as robins’ rain-song or even-song. I recall a flock of these happy birds singing from maple-tops in a little village nestled beside a brawling river, when patches of brown earth showed beneath melting snow, and heavy rain-clouds broke away to reveal a golden western sky. The robins sang with the joy that my own heart felt at the renewal of life on the earth. I once heard their even-song in an elm-shaded college-town of Massachusetts during a lovely Sunday evening in June, when church-bells rang and robins held a vesper service all their own. My sister and I walked beneath the great arched trees and found ourselves speaking in whispers, as was our habit in the cathedrals of the Old World.
The robin’s tut-tut, or tut-tut-tut′-tut-tut-tut-tut,—his scolding note,—is very similar to the exclamation of reproof our grandfather used to administer to us for childish misdemeanors. It is amusing to see how robins use this form of remonstrance to humans. John Burroughs wrote that he was kept out of his own summer-house by a female robin that was nesting there. She scolded him so soundly for trespassing upon his own property, which she had appropriated, that he could have no peace. He finally left her in possession till her young had flown.[49] I had a similar experience when picking cherries in a friend’s garden. A robin had preceded me and resented my intrusion in no uncertain manner. No angry fishmonger of Billingsgate ever hurled more noisy vituperation at a thief than did that robin fling at me, especially when I coolly refused to heed his commands to “Keep Off.”