Cheerily Cheerily Get Up Get Up

American Robins

Photo credit: Richard Wilson

I am trying to sleep in. It’s the third day of my retirement, and I don’t want to get out of bed. But the robin outside my window has other ideas. He sings his cheery song loud and clear. Some people think of it as “cheerily, cheerily cheer up cheer up”. Right now it sounds like “sleepy head, sleepyhead, get up, get up.” I grumble a bit about leaving my cozy warm bed, but I follow orders and roll out into a beautiful early spring morning. The soundscape is filled with other birds, but that robin has center stage this morning. He’s been here now for two or three months, making his nest, courting his partner. I’ve heard his brothers singing all my life but until now hadn’t taken the time to sort his song out from the symphony of a spring morning.

Mr. Robin, with his loud, cheerful voice, is large for a song bird, from 8 to 11 inches long with a wing span of 12 to 15 inches. It always amazes me how light birds are. With his round body and long legs and long tail, he weighs in at about 3 ounces. His head is dark with a yellow bill and white spots around his eyes. He has a white throat streaked with black, and white spots underneath. The female is similarly but less boldly dressed.

The robin is actually a thrush, which may account for the clear notes of his song. He is gray-brown on his back with a dark head and an orange breast which reminded the early settlers of their beloved robin Red-Breast back home in Europe. The American robin is bigger and only distantly related to the English robin, but the settlers were so homesick for their beloved robins that they called not just our robin of today, but also bluebirds, towhees (ground robins) and Baltimore orioles (golden robins). Indeed, they called anything else with orange on its breast “robin.” 

Back in the old country, they liked to give their birds names. A wren was called Jenny Wren. Robin Red Breast was given the name Robin (a diminutive of Robert) with Red-Breast added because of the color of its breast, which is actually orange. The word Orange didn’t come into the English vocabulary until the 16^th century when Dutch traders introduced this new citrus fruit to England. This was long after Robin got his name, so despite his brilliant orange breast, his name remains Robin Red Breast.

The two species are from different parts of the taxonomy. The English robin is smaller than the American robin and related to flycatchers rather than thrushes.

Meanwhile, a legend which can be ascribed to either bird goes like this:

In that stable long ago where Jesus was born, it was cold. Mary asked a little robin to help keep the fire going so the baby would not freeze. The robin fanned the fire for hours with his wings, keeping it glowing hot, and occasionally picked up twigs in his beak to add to the fire. He was so successful at keeping the fire going though that it singed his pure white breast, leaving it the very color of fire.

Other legends associated with the English robin are that its breast is stained with the blood of Jesus as it picked the thorns out of his crown; that he singed it while visiting the souls in purgatory; or that he singed it when a wren came down from heaven reintroducing fire to the world. Some considered it sacred, and an Irish superstition said that the hand that struck the robin would develop a tremor.

The reputation of the American robin has more to do with being the harbinger of spring than with Jesus and tremors though. My noisy little friend started singing in early March. He had come back to scout out his territory so that when the females arrived a couple of weeks later, he’d be able to court them with the promise of real estate. He had joined his friends and gone south last fall, winding up somewhere like Louisiana or Texas where the fruits and berries were plentiful through the winter. He started getting restless a few weeks ago and decided to leave the sunny south to follow spring as it moved north along the 37-degree isotherm—that is the line on a map that connects places with 37 degrees average daily temperature. He Doesn’t have a map, and he doesn’t watch the Weather channel, but he knows that around 37 degrees, the earth worms will do their vertical migration, coming to the surface after a winter wrapped up in a big ball of their buddies down below the frost line. And there’s nothing tastier than a nice juicy earth worm.

When the females arrive a few weeks later, they’ll choose their mate for the year, build a nest and lay five or six of those robin’s-egg blues. Meanwhile, he postures and fights to protect his territory. She incubates the eggs, and when they hatch, both parents bring them food. They might do a couple of broods a season if conditions are right. This is probably a good thing since the first-year robins are easy prey and have a very high mortality rate. If they survive that first year, they can expect to make it for five or six more years. Robin fathers are busy. Not only do they protect their territory, but they are responsible for the fledglings once the female starts nesting again. He leads them to safe roosts with other robin fledglings and robin fathers, and teaches them the rules of the society. When the next batch fledges, his wife calls him back home to help feed the new babies. He leaves the first brood on their own, in the community of first-years to fend for themselves. When it’s time to migrate, they all join a flock and head south.

I’ll miss their morning ruckus when they stop singing in August and start getting ready for that trip to Louisiana or Texas.