Winter Robins? was originally published in the BFEC Newsletter, Vol.16/No. 1, Winter 2012.
The BFEC is home to an amazingly diverse variety of birds, and one of the easiest to identify is the harbinger of spring, the American robin. Robins belong to a group of songbirds called thrushes, which also include bluebirds. They are common lawn and city birds, but are also at home in woodlands and wild areas.
Some Knox County residents are surprised to spot robins in winter. Most of them do migrate south and time their spring return with warm, rainy weather and the emergence of earthworms. However, a few robins will remain in their breeding range all winter if their favorite winter food — berries and fruit — are available. In winter they are spotted far less frequently because much of their time is spent roosting in trees instead of on lawns where they forage during spring. Their winter foods include berries and fruits of poison ivy, barberry and honeysuckles. (Robins that feed exclusively on Honeysuckle may in fact become intoxicated because of the fermenting berries.) During unusually warm and wet winters, they still invade yards en masse to feed on earthworms, a treat during drab and dreary days.