A flock of cheery robins recently showed up in the side yard.
I happened to be looking out the window the moment when the perky throng came sweeping over the wood privacy fence and its bordering tangle of junipers. I watched as they swooped down and landed in the open space adjacent to the mixed hedge of forsythia and spirea.
My winter lawn consists of greenish patches of now dormant grass spattered amongst larger brown splotches of soggy leaves I failed to rake up last fall. I can’t imagine why this looks like an attractive breakfasting spot to a robin.
The congregation numbered at least fifty red-breasted birds — though that tally is just a guess. Amid the lively hither-and-yon chaos of the assemblage’s non-stop bobbing and darting, there was no chance of achieving anything close to an accurate head count.
Still, watching those energetic robins highlighted what was certainly a very pretty day. The morning sun was shining bright, pouring gleaming light through the interwoven latticework of white-barked sycamores along the river. The Stillwater’s current purely sparkled.
However, belying the scene’s dazzling illumination, it was decidedly cold — 33 degrees according to my outdoor thermometer. Plus, things were soon going to get worse. Various media pundits were abuzz with forewarnings of snow and below-freezing temperatures heading our way.
Yet, despite the chill and ominous weather predictions, the sunny morning and the sight of all those sprightly robins instantly flooded my head with visions of spring.
Sure, I know my thoughts were foolishly premature. Spring by the calendar is still weeks away. The season doesn’t officially start until March 19 with its passing equinox.
Nor did I doubt the impending truth of all those snowy forecasts. This is Ohio. I had no problem whatsoever believing winter was about to show us how it was still in charge by giving everyone at least one more dose of cold and snow. A one-for-the-road icy blast.
Nevertheless, in spite of that certainty, I immediately had a robin reverie.
In my mind, robins invariably augur spring. The two are irresolutely joined. Given this linking, I couldn’t help where their morning visitation took me — and the sudden pleasant experience of becoming lost in sweet memories.
When I was growing up, the appearance of a robin squadron in February would have been a rare event. A real treat! You almost never saw one anytime between the latter part of November and mid-March. A flock of fifty birds strong in February would have been newsworthy!
During the 1950s and 1960s, Ohio’s robin populations were decimated by the use of pesticides. Robins were in short supply.
Most of the time, we saw the new year’s first robins as migrating flocks heading north with the spring. Twenty to forty birds might land in the yard, spend maybe half an hour investigating every nook and cranny for tidbits of food, then depart just as quickly as they’d arrived.
Folks often dialed up one another afterward just to share this unexpected blessing — since the year’s first robins meant spring was truly on the way.
Yes, it was claimed there were a very few robins that hung around all year. At least from time to time you heard rumors to this effect. But I never saw them — not one rusty-red feather. Not in the suburban neighborhood where we lived — only those aforementioned migratory transients.
I can still remember prowling through a January woods along Twin Creek and spotting several robins flitting about amongst the brush-tangles. I’d never before seen winter robins so early — and to top it off, these were obviously overwintering residents and not part of a traveling flock.
I was absolutely thrilled! What an astonishing sight and discovery!
But the event’s facts are even more astonishing because this happened when I was sixteen years old! I’d driven there in my very first car — a seven-year-old VW — and scored a personal wintertime birding first!
My mother always took great delight upon seeing a late-winter flock of robins. Those robins buoyed Mom up and gave her immediate joy because they reassured her belief and confidence that winter would end sooner or later.
Mom loved flowers. She had a wealth of flowers planted all around the house and yard. Early robins confirmed the turning seasons and the fact that before too much longer, her beloved plants would again begin to bloom.
Spring as a season will debut whenever it sees fit, following only loosely the whir of astronomical machinery. A bit early, a tad late — no two years are identical.
But spring as a season also comes to the heart — in a daydream, vision, mental conceptualization, or flight of fancy. Spring is not bound by schedules or weather.
For me, spring came the other morning in a robin reverie.
Reach Jim McGuire at [email protected].
