WILDLIFE : It’s Red, It Bobs and It’s Actually a Thrush

From coast to coast, from south of Texas all the way to Alaska, the lovely robin raises nestlings on our windowsills and pulls earthworms in the spray of our lawn sprinklers. In spring, its song wakes us at dawn and sings us to sleep at dusk.

Did you know, however, that robins are really misnamed thrushes?

Long ago, homesick immigrants, noting the bird’s resemblance to the European robin red breast, adopted the name as a reminder of home. Whatever people wish to call them, American robins definitely look and act like thrushes. They have robust breasts and stout, pointed beaks. They run and forage mainly on the ground, lay blue eggs in nests, have spotted young and sing beautifully.

Few people know what robins really eat. Earthworms, actually a tiny portion of their diet, are taken mainly while the ground is damp and there are insatiable nestlings begging for soft, easily digested protein.

In the southeastern part of the country, robins feast on chinaberries and occasionally consume fallen, fermented fruit until they are quite drunk.

More than one astonished homeowner has gazed onto the front lawn and seen inebriated robins staggering away from the chinaberry bush, unable to fly in a straight line.

Another surprising robin food is the white berry of poison ivy. Although the oils of this plant cause severe skin reactions in humans, they apparently have no effect on robins, who snap them from their stems and toss them down as eagerly as we would enjoy ripe strawberries.

Robins are not above sneaking into orchards to pilfer fruits destined for supermarkets and dinner tables.

In addition to grapes, they will peck figs, pears, apples and blackberries.

Most robins content themselves with an ordinary lifestyle and a familiar back-yard behavior. Here are a few facts that will help you better understand and enjoy robins:

* Males, which have noticeably redder breasts and blacker heads than females, return to their breeding territories from mid-February to late April, depending on latitude. The spring migration follows an average daily temperature of 37 degrees.

* Two-year-old and older males usually reclaim the exact territories (about half an acre) in which they previously raised broods. Young males return to the neighborhoods in which they were raised and try to find unoccupied sites, which are usually poorer quality.

Some first-timers claim vacancies created by males, perhaps their fathers, that did not survive the rigors of winter.

* The exuberant, boisterous, cheery robin songs are not so much love songs to females as threats and warnings to other male robins: “Keep off my turf!”

* A male will court any hen in his territory by displaying his finery. Because an unattached hen is not yet tied to a territory, she can roam freely from one area to another, pulling a suitor along as if he were on a string. As soon as the suitor enters another males’s territory, however, the fight is on. The fluttering battles one sees in early spring are the result of these territorial romances.

* Eventually, each hen will choose a mate, often the same one from the previous year, and the pair will start house hunting.

Although males lead hens to possible nesting sites and help deliver building materials, the female makes the choice and constructs the nest.

Nest sites can be anything from sturdy limbs five to 30 feet up a tree to fence posts, street lamps, stoplights, rain gutters or rock ledges. Construction time varies from one to six days.