I’m a bit of a bird guy. I enjoy observing various birds in our yard/garden. When I notice a new one, I carefully log it on my handy dandy eBird app from Cornell University.
Watching birds is normally thought of as something older people do. My Mom watched birds and had both books and binoculars, and Purple Martin houses. I hated cleaning the nests out of those things every spring.
I’m older now so that’s maybe part of my reason for liking and watching birds. Our oldest daughter has commented on that being a sign of age creeping up on my wife and myself. I just wish everything that is creeping up on us was as interesting as watching birds.
I was guilty some years ago of saying “we only have sparrows, pigeons and Robins around here.” In the last couple of years I have logged 36 different species of birds mostly in the area of our yard, and I’m sure I’ve missed a few.
In addition to the American Robin I have observed: a Brown Creeper, Yellow Rumped Warbler, Northern Flicker, Nashville Warbler, American Gold Finch, Mississippi Kite, and Rose-breasted Grosbeak among others.
Robins are interesting to observe. I provide various kinds of food and feeders for birds ranging from whole peanuts in the shell for my Blue Jays, to safflower seeds for finches, Cardinals and others, and also various flavors of suet. You will never find a Robin on a feeder. Instead, they are always on the ground, listening for worms.
It’s true, they really are listening for worms. You can watch them tilt their head from side to side and then stab the ground with their beak and pull out a juicy worm. Your observation proves they listen for them. It’s not just me.
And the Montana State University library says: “Just how a robin is able to hear something as quiet as an earthworm is still unknown, but they are not the only birds that can locate food this way. Magpies are also known to locate scarab beetle grubs in the ground through hearing.”
Along with their acute sense of hearing they are uniquely equipped to get worms out of the ground. They have a spear shaped beak with the ability to pull the unsuspecting worms out of the ground, many times in one piece. I’ve observed Robins hopping around on the grass “listening,” and then notice them over near the flagstone path stopping near a stone as if they hear something. And I think, this is really going to hurt.
All this caused me to wonder what Robins ate while their unique ability to hear lunch crawling around just below the surface of ground evolved?