County’s robin population burst is more than a sign of spring

FORT BRAGG, 3/1/23 — Although snow has made people think winter is endless, a bird is bringing a very strong message that spring is nearing: huge flocks of American Robins are in search of scarcer insects.

It all started when a friendly robin poked his head in the one-inch crack of my kitchen window. I had never seen this before. When I went outside, the yard was covered in American Robins. While most flew away at my emergence, the friendly fella at the window hopped down on the deck and approached my dog Brutus. Brutus, trained to protect poultry and chase ravens, paid no attention. So the little guy hopped up to our ducks, and they too ignored him. Cool but weird.

When I went to the Cleone Market, the field across the street was covered with robins. I counted 70. I had never seen that many anywhere. A couple weeks earlier at Adventist Health Mendocino Coast hospital, we had seen about 30 robins out on the helipad and marveled at the friendly flock who seemed to be having fun yet not eating any of the plentiful worms.

I asked local professional photographer Larry Wagner if he had seen many robins. Wagner is seldom without his camera, and it’s usually aimed at birds. Wagner said he had never seen so many robins in all his years of photography. He suggested it was a newsworthy story to explore.

Next I asked Becky Bowen, possibly Fort Bragg’s best known birdwatcher. 

“I recently came home from running errands in Fort Bragg and counted 47 American Robins in the front yard. It’s not unusual to see them here in the winter, but it seems like they’re all over the place right now,” Bowen said.

Where next but to Google, where I found three articles about robins invading the San Diego area for the first time ever.

Looking into the science, I found that the picture was even more intriguing than the anecdotes had led me to believe. Robins hit an all-time high in the 12-year history of the Fort Bragg Audubon Christmas count, with 2949 counted as opposed to 628 last year. Point Arena’s 49-year Christmas count shows a high in the past 20 years of 1195. But it didn’t look so amazing when put into historical context. The 2001 robin count in Point Arena was 2651 and 4100 in 1981. Numbers fluctuate wildly over time, with just 26 of the early birds counted in 1974 in Point Arena. 

The National Audubon Christmas Count started 123 years ago as an original crowdsourced effort. The Christmas Bird Count occurs December 14 to January 5 every season.

Tim Bray is the president of Mendocino Coast Audubon Society, which includes the counts in both Fort Bragg and Point Arena. “You have to be very careful drawing any conclusions from a single year’s observations,” Bray said. “Certainly we can say there are a lot of robins on the coast this year, more than usual but within the expected range of numbers. Someone may well know what factors contribute to the local population surges in some years — just not me. I think the overall population across North America has been declining slightly.”

The robin is the easiest thrush to count because it is unafraid to be seen, and territorial, meaning they won’t leave their nest because a mockingbird or bird counter happens along. There are several other North American thrush species on the coast, such as Hermit Thrush (common on the coast), Swainson’s Thrush (summer breeder on coast), and Western Bluebird (common resident on the coast).

Bray said a huge flock of robins may come to a new or familiar area unexpectedly and distort the numbers in a way other bids do not.“This happened on the [Point Arena] count a few years ago. Chris Bing and I happened to be under the flight path for robins leaving their roost at dawn, flying out in flocks of around 50-100 birds at a time, and I estimated over 1,000 flew over us in about half an hour. Nobody else on the Count had more than 20.”

Alvaro Jaramillo, expert birder and ornithologist in Half Moon Bay, said the fact robins are not stuck in one migration pattern often makes people think the population has exploded or crashed when numbers fluctuate. “American Robins are special in that they can migrate mid-winter in a way that most birds just do not do. Officially called ‘facultative migrants,’ they move when the food resources change, even in mid-winter,” Jaramillo said in a recent online birding post.

“Most other birds sit and wait out the winter, and make do. They will not migrate long distances mid-winter. In any case, for me on the coast the last week has been a week of watching American Robin numbers skyrocket from what was here previously. They are all over the place and feeding on whatever berries they can find.”

The reason why robins are migrating here in such large numbers may not be good news for the planet. Scientists have documented a dramatic drop in insect species across the nation, which has increased migration of birds that can flex like robins but may deprive others of scarce food. 

In a study published in Ornithological Applications, researchers found that declines in native plants — and the resulting drop in insects — may be causing the number of terrestrial insectivorous birds to fall, an article in the Wilderness Society magazine reported.

“Invasive species have penetrated ecosystems and replaced native plants just about everywhere. Human-dominated landscapes make up a huge area,” said Doug Tallamy, a professor of entomology and wildlife ecology at the University of Delaware, who conducted the study with his University of Delaware co-author Greg Shriver. “When we allow that to happen, it decreases the insect populations our birds need.”

Recent research has shown that the U.S. and Canada have lost 39 percent of their birds in the last 50 years. Ninety percent were terrestrial birds that require insects to eat and feed their young.

With that in mind, Tallamy and Shriver classified birds known to be declining — based on the Breeding Bird Survey — into two groups: those that require insects and those that don’t. They found that in the last 50 years, birds that don’t need insects actually gained about 26 million individuals. Species that require insects, however, lost an average of 2.9 billion individuals. All insects have suffered precipitous declines, attributed to monoculture crops and pesticide use. There are dozens of alarming studies and articles on the subject.

The decline hit shy species the hardest as well as those that don’t migrate or are unable to change their migratory patterns or diet. Robins are not shy, can quickly change their diet (except earthworms for their young), and migrate wherever the bugs are, seeming to send out scouting parties before the mass follows them to the new area. It’s likely that the end of  the drought brought a huge increase of bugs and worms to the Mendocino Coast, followed by the big robin flocks. Robins have not declined in recent decades, despite the fate of most other bug and worm eaters, some of  which have made the endangered species list in that time.

Robins are one of the most common birds  in literature, such as the hopping little robin that led the little girl to The Secret Garden, the 1911 book by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Myth says the robin took pity on Christ and removed his crown of thorns;  his blood formed their distinctive red breasts. But those are European Robins.

Not even kissing cousins

The American Robin is not related to the European Robin, which is a flycatcher, not a thrush. They share that famous “red breast” (actually orange in both) and are also both known as the gardener’s best friend for eating bugs and worms (worms were once believed to be bad for gardens). (The word for the color orange didn’t exist when the robin was named red breast, only emerging when the fruit came to England in the 16th century.) Both European and American robins are famous for being “early birds,” feeding at the crack of dawn. They will actually “cheat” and hunt at night if artificial light is present. The European is smaller and more round than the American. Both are among the most successful birds on earth, with European robins numbering in the hundreds of millions. The American Robin is a quintessential North American bird, occurring in Canada, Mexico and every state but Hawaii. It is the most common wild bird in North America; there are about the same number of robins in all North America as humans in the USA, roughly 336 million, a survey of university sites showed. It’s the state bird of Connecticut, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

The Audubon Christmas Bird Count has documented the loss of 3 billion birds since 1970 in the US. The friendly behavior I witnessed from the robin  in my window is an evolutionary adaptation to humans, reports from Audubon show. Birds able to deal with humans do better than shy birds that have found their habitat gone or greatly reduced. Being friendly with humans is a tremendous evolutionary benefit.

Mankind has greatly multiplied the numbers of the most aggressive species, like ravens, while birds like wood ducks flee humans, who often protect them, only to have their babies and eggs devoured by ravens.

“The Audubon report citing a loss of 3 billion birds has received a lot of attention. It is well-supported by evidence.,” Bray said.“A lot of those losses have been in eastern North America and especially in former grassland ecosystems, nearly all of which have been converted to agriculture, with consequent loss of ecosystem function. Nearly all ecosystems have been altered in some way over the last several decades, producing a few `winners’ [species that benefit from the change] and many `losers.’ Among the winners are waterfowl, especially geese, whose populations are now presenting problems in some areas. Refuges have certainly helped, but are doing very little for many other kinds of birds who can’t pack themselves into little islands of habitat.”

Bird counts allow participants to be the first to see changes in the outdoor world that are often harbingers of change. The Fort Bragg Christmas bird count species are shown here.

The Fort Bragg Christmas Count came during dry weather in 2023, a big relief for the participants. Participation in the Christmas Count this year was about average — 54 people for Fort Bragg, Bray said. Teams went out on foot, on bicycles, by car, and by boat. A Spanish-English bilingual team was led by Esme Plascencia of Latino Outdoors. 

Several different methodologies are used in the Christmas Bird Count. Some people go looking for birds. Tennessee Warbler and Yellow-bellied Sapsucker were seen by people who did a “stakeout” at Rose Memorial Cemetery, found by Roger Adamson and Chris Lamoureaux. To everyone’s surprise, a second Tennessee Warbler appeared in Adamson’s yard and was counted by Grete Adamson, Bray reported. This species was first noted on the Mendocino Coast in the winter of 2018 and has been found every year since, according to The Black Oystercatcher, the magazine of the Mendocino Coast Audubon Society.

Another bird count is the worldwide Great Backyard Bird Count, going on in February. I was disappointed that I only saw three robins during the time period of the study but more came the next day. The Christmas Bird Count is considered more scientific, while the Backyard Bird Count attracts more counters and is more anecdotal. Audubon is involved in both. Christmas counters are trained birders while anyone can participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count. The Backyard Bird Count uses more robotics in its count. For instance when I reported seeing 12 ravens from my back porch, the robot said that was an anomaly and asked me to explain how that was possible. When I described the tall pine, redwood and cypress in my yard, the answer was accepted.

When robins start pulling earthworms out of the soil, it’s a sign that nesting is beginning and spring is even closer.

Fort Bragg birder Becky Bowen said, “There’s one biologist, Joan E. Strassmann, from St. Louis, who calls them `earthworm whisperers.’  They are brilliant at locating earthworms and plucking them out of the soil to bring to chicks in the nest . This is pretty hard work, so the earthworm business is mostly for chick-raising. In winter, they just flock around together and forage on fruits.”

How can someone join the bird counts?

“People join by contacting me, so I can assign them to teams or territories. I always need more experienced birders who can cover a territory or route. I try to find ways for beginners to participate as well, without bogging down the field team leaders too much. It takes a lot of effort to count birds effectively,” Bray said. Readers can find out more about the Mendocino Coast Audubon here.

Inland areas are covered by the Peregrine Audubon Society. The Ukiah Christmas Bird Count found 119 species. Learn more about the Peregrine Audubon Society here. Joining the Peregrine Audubon Society is $20 per year. Members receive email notifications whenever The Falcon Flyer newsletter is updated. 

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