The Canadian Robins

A few weeks ago, in mid January, I saw the biggest robin I had ever seen. Here he was in this urban neighborhood in the middle of the snow and cold. Am I going crazy? I thought. That was a robin, right?

On Monday there were over 30 of them flying around the trees, eating berries. I couldn't believe they were robins, but I looked on the Web and couldn't find any other birds that looked remotely like them. Then a co-worker described the same sighting out in a more rural area.

Turns out they are Canadian robins who come here in February. They're larger than the regular robins. Robins roost in groups of hundreds at night. I did not know that. They are migratory songbirds of the thrush family, known typically as Turdus migratorius, with several subspecies. There are a number of legends about the robin. One is that a robin fanned the embers in the barn where Christ was born, in order to keep Mary and the baby warm, scorching his feathers a red color in the process. Another, told by Charles Dickens, tells the tale of how Dame Nature told the robin about the fires of hell. The robin was so moved he put a drop of water in his beak and flew there to try to extinguish the flames. His feathers were scorched in the process. Robins are often associated with charity and it is considered bad luck to kill them. The Welsh call them "Breast-burnt" or "Bron-rhuddyn."

The Native American Chippeways have a legend that a powerful hunter urged his son to fast as long as possible during the son's coming of age fast. The son became a robin, but told his father not to mourn the transformation, that he would be happier as a robin than a man and would be a friend to humans and live around their dwellings.

Lately temperatures have plunged back into the Arctic zone. At 5 p.m. today it was fourteen degrees with a stiff wind that made it feel more like five. Four below is the predicted low. More cold tomorrow and then it's supposed to warm up into the tropical 40s on the weekend. Then it's going to get cold again. The robins are pretty. I hope they survive.


There's some better pictures on another blog here.