Northern Robins Trying to Trick Us?

Cedar waxwings I saw, Feb. 9, 2013,  feeding on the berries of two crabapple trees decorating a lawn.  A northern robin was feeding with them.  (Photo by Don Comis)

I saw two robins today, one as I drove down the road leading to our house in Howard, Ohio, and one in my yard again when I got home.  As I drove into the driveway in late afternoon, I flushed a flock of about a dozen mourning doves feeding on fallen seeds, the biggest flock I've had so far at least this winter.  And the robin was nearby.

After I wrote the blog yesterday and thought about the northern robin appearing in a crabapple tree on February 9, 2013, with a flock of cedar waxwings, I began to realize that part of the reason the northern robins become visible suddenly in Feburary may be because their food sources in the woods are running low and they move over to people's crabapple trees which form berries in February.

Maybe the robin hung out with cedar waxwings in the woods as they fed on holly berries and then moved with them in search of crabapple berries?

It's intriguing, too, to think that maybe the robin in my yard has hooked up with a flock of mourning doves since I've seen her twice in the vicinity of doves.  At least both species are ground feeders.

The cold and wind this evening that ends a brief thawing period makes me also think that weather also plays a role in the sudden public appearances of northern robins in February.  Did the warm thaw period  draw them out of the woods, in addition to dwindling food?

Whatever the case, this sudden appearance of two robins near homes in our development makes it even harder to convince people and myself that these are not our spring robins returned!