More than the groundhog (or the house cat) the return of the American robin to our area is the signature “sign of spring” event Over the past 23 years, February 14 has been the most common “first robin sighting” day at my house in Apollo. Different people in different places, though, have had (and are having this year, too) varied “first robin” sighting experiences.
For example, in the past few weeks Karen Harlan spotted a flock of robins feasting on the unpicked apples in trees near her apartment in Pittsburgh (see picture!), and Dr. John McNavage spotted a ground flock of 75 to 100 robins near a busy road in Shaler. Maria Franco de Gomez has regularly seen robins this winter around the miniature pear trees in her yard, and Jim and Lynn Ramage had a noisy winter flock of male robins at their house along the Allegheny River. Lori Hensel has also talked about her winter robins living in the holly thicket behind her house.
Birds (robins included) primarily migrate out of northern areas because of the necessity of finding food. Robins turning very exclusively to fruit for winter sustenance have the opportunity to skip the long, energetically expensive and individually perilous migration flight south. With luck, and with abundant apples, pears, holly berries, etc., they can survive the winter and potentially claim the best local nesting sites before the migrating individuals come back on the scene.
Lots of bird activity everywhere. The male titmouses (“titmice”?) are singing territory and aggressively tussling with each other in the bare branches of my forsythia bushes. The female sharp-shinned hawk has been calling her mate to the high branches of the black locust tree in the back of my field, and the wood thrush I described in a previous posting is still coming to my front yard and is still laboriously using his long, thrush beak to crack sunflower seeds on the ground. I wonder if he is finding fruit somewhere, too?
As I said, February 14 is the usual day to see the first robin. On December 28, though, I stepped out of my front door and heard the familiar, rolling cackle of a robin! The ground was covered with snow and it was quite cold: not typical “first robin” conditions! I walked down to the front of my woods and scanned the red pine branches from which I thought the song had come. Bouncing around the branches was an energetic blue jay making his own versions of robin songs. He flew off when I approached the tree and has not returned.
I have heard blue jays make red tailed hawk calls and can understand the value of this type of mimicry (it’s a very effective way to scare other birds away from a nest or food source). I am not sure what the utility of a robin’s song would be to a jay, but it surely got my attention.
After doing a www search for “robin spring first sighting pennsylvania”, I found your blog.
I too am from the Apollo area and saw the first robin of spring today, Feb 10th, 2022. To me this seems like the earliest, I personally have recognized robins returning/appearing after winter.
Though, considering on the Chinese 24 solar term calendar, spring begins Feb 3-5, and also considering how odd the weather is anymore; (it was in the 60s and raining all of Christmas week in 2021, not to mention how odd the bird migrations seem to me, or lack there of, I seem to have seen more unusual types of birds around here, for the time of year, lately than in past years0, it’s really no wonder.