"Turdus migratorius": Spring or Winter?

Sunday morning started out dreary and cold. The rain during the night had quit, but the cloudy threat of it still lingered. The temperature hovered above freezing. I did my usual Sunday morning routine of incense burning, reading, and listening to jazz. About 11:00a.m. I heard the sounds of spring: robins were calling to each other outside my back door!

The American robin, "Turdus migratorius", is described in Reader's Digest, "North American Wildlife", as "one of the most neighborly of birds". It is further characterized as "bright reddish orange below with dark grey above...with broken eye ring and white-tipped tail". Their habitat includes "open forests, farmlands, suburbs, parks; sheltered areas with fruit on trees (winter)".

The cause for the robin ruckus was a large female holly tree, fifty feet South of my balcony. I have no idea what signaled the robins that the red berries were ripe. A flock of twenty-five of them took turns cruising from the tall locust tree outside my bedroom window to the tempting fruits beyond. Calling, squabbling, eating from the holly tree, flying back, surveying it from the locust tree, and repeating this behavior: the robins were not messengers of spring, but harbingers of winter!

The feeding frenzy went on for an hour. At noon-time the rain descended again. The robins dispersed. The air grew quiet. The solitude of the season and the rain inspired this haiku:

Late Autumn holly:

Red berries eaten and flashed

By orange robins!

Like the robins, enjoy the fruits of late Autumn as we prepare for the barreness of early winter.