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unlucky individuals can be spared for a hungry and resourceful robin.
It is now generally accepted that a robin actually sees the critter as it moves through the earth just below the surface. It was thought for many years that the bird was listening when he cocked his head to one side just before making a stab at the moist earth. No so, a robin cocks his head in order to see due to the placement of his eyes.
Many view the sight of a robin as a sign of spring. This is a pleasant, though false, assumption. Robins haven’t returned because they never left in the first place; they just went to a different habitat. Robins don’t migrate south as much as change their behavior; they gather in flocks and congregate in dense woods and swamps where they feed on berries. Warm weather brings them back to our lawns.
Once, long ago, I witnessed an enormous flock of robins as they poured into a thicket near Chapel Hill, N.C. It was at the end of a day in late January. My companion robinwatchers estimated the flock to contain over 20,000 birds. That’s a lot of robins.
What would Virginia be like without robins?
98.3%