The First Robin Of Spring

Yesterday evening, while biking to work (I work night shifts at my weather job), I heard the first robin in many months!

The first chirp from a robin has traditionally been associated with the beginning of spring.  This is apparent in two famous 19th century poems: Emily Dickinson’s “I Dreaded That First Robin So,” a depressing piece about spring being yet another season in the inevitable march towards mortality, and William H Drummond’s “The First Robin,” a far more cheerful poem claiming that the lucky person who saw the first robin of spring will be blessed with good luck. Personally, I prefer Mr. Drummond’s take on everybody’s favorite springtime bird.

But after hearing all of these claims about the first robin signaling the start of spring, I had to research this relationship for myself. Are robins really the reliable indicators of spring that we believe them to be? It would seem like they must be; after all, they have been associated with spring for hundreds of years. However, the truth is more complicated.

Like many birds, the American Robin migrates southward for the winter and northward for the summer. Heck, the bird’s scientific name is Turdus migratorius. They are capable of surviving in a wide variety of conditions, and can be found all the way from the far northern reaches of Alaska and Northeast Canada in the summer down south to Mexico and El Salvador in the winter. Robins migrate more based on the availability of food than temperature, with fruit and berries being their primary winter food source and insects and worms being their primary summer food source.

However, not all robins migrate southward. This is especially true for regions of the country with relatively mild winters, including areas of the West Coast. Robins forage for the few remaining berries on trees, bushes, and shrubs, but because our ground is generally not covered with snow during the winter, they have the option of eating worms and insects as well. Robins are less commonly spotted here during the winter because they are both less abundant and tend to spend more time high up in trees, but they are definitely around. Seeing a robin does not signal the start of spring.

On the other hand, hearing a robin is a definitely a sign that spring is on its way. As the days get longer and temperatures get warmer, all those robins that migrated southward head back up north for the summer. Once they’ve arrived at their summer residences, they have one thing on their mind: making more robins. The robins that you hear singing are males both advertising their services to females and telling other males to stay out of their territory.

So it’s not the first robin you see that counts. It’s the first robin you hear.