During the early morning hours I’m sure that you have noticed that when you wake up you hear the beautiful voices of songbirds outside your windows. Some mornings if you try to sleep in, it can be so loud that you can’t sleep and you must go ahead and get up because you can’t escape the serenade. It is a joyous sound of birds being happy to see a new day! It is also the beginnings of the mating song of birds getting ready to nest and lay their eggs.
As I go outside to begin my walk I hear the sounds of different birds singing in the trees. Since I am still a relative newbie to the bird world, I am still learning to recognize the songs of birds. True birders can walk through the woods and immediately recognize and identify the songs and the chatter of individual birds. Some people just have a natural knack for it. My husband, Dennis, can easily identify a lot of the sounds of birds, but I am improving the more that I train my ear to recognize little repetitive things that individual birds do.
I also try to search out the location of the bird that is singing so that I can put a face to the singer. Since I walk mostly the same area each day I have learned the nesting locations of many birds and that helps to identify the type of bird that I am listening to such as Mockingbirds, Blue Jays, Cardinals and Robins that have certain territories in the places that I go walking.
One bird that is often overlooked is the Robin. It is considered a very common bird and most people when asked what their favorite bird is will rarely say that it is a Robin. I most always say that my favorite is a Cardinal! But, I have found that the Robin is becoming a close second.
This spring seems to be the year of the Robin! I have seen more Robins in our city than I have ever seen and I have taken more photos of them than ever before. One thing that I have taken note of this spring is that they are beautiful songbirds and their song has a lovely tune. They sing at sunrise and are often the bird that sings the last song of the evening as the sun sets.
They are also pretty calm birds and they allow you to get fairly close to them in your yard. One of their main characteristics is that they are known for running and stopping quickly to avoid you rather than flying away from you. They are mostly seen on the ground searching for a fat juicy worm, but they also eating a wide variety of sweet things such as fruits and berries.
Robins live in the South all year round, but in some colder areas of the country, when they return they are considered a bird that heralds spring. In fact, in one of the versions of the superhero Robin, he was nicknamed Robin “because he was born on the first day of spring!” according to perkypet.com.
One of my favorite things about a Robin is his love for a good bath! Probably 75% of the baths taken in my birdbath are taken by Robins. They splash around in the water and then shake themselves slinging water everywhere with such obvious vigor that you know that they are enjoying themselves.
Last but not least is the Robin’s appearance. They have a vibrant orange belly that is his most impressive mark that distinguishes him, but the white circles around his eyes has become something that I have totally grown to love. The circles give his eyes an obvious emphasis when I photograph him.
Jesus in Matthew 6:26 said “Look at the birds of the air…” so thank you for continuing to grow in knowledge of birds as you look at the birds with me!
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