A friend recently posted a cheery comment on her Facebook page, noting that she had spotted a robin in her backyard, so it must be spring, despite the abundance of snow and still mostly below freezing temperatures. Unfortunately, that old truism that robins are a sign of spring is only partly true.

A couple of winters ago I headed out on my bike to Fort Snelling State Park on a mild day in late December. I had only ventured a short ways down the bike trail when I noticed robins everywhere, 15 to 20 of them. They were hopping about in the low branches and on the ground, which was dotted with patches of mud.

A Google search later led me to Sharon Stiteler’s Bird Chick blog, where I learned that robins are not such unusual winter denizens, after all. She explains that robins will hang around as long as they can find food, shelter, and water, and added that the ones we see in winter are probably not the same robins we see in summer -- these are most likely migrants from farther north.

In fact, robins regularly show up on Christmas bird count lists in Minnesota and other northern locales, and have for as long as birders have been counting. Robins have been sited in winter not only in all the northern states, but also in Ontario and Quebec, according to the Wilson Ornithological Society, founded in 1888 and based in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Your backyard could be a robin-friendly habitat in winter if you have bushes or trees that hang onto their berries in the winter -- or provide such food for them -- or if you manage to keep a source of open water available (such as with a birdbath heater). Kathlyn Stone, writing for the Twin Cities Daily Planet last winter, was surprised to find robins hanging around in her backyard, and then discovered that her partner was putting out berries and other fruit for them

But most of our robins do fly south in winter, returning when the soil starts to thaw and the worms are emerging, which is when average temperatures are around 37 degrees. We’re not quite there yet -- that usually happens toward the end of March -- so I’m guessing that my friend’s backyard robin is one of those winter migrants from yet farther north.
--SP