A Spring Classic

Robins eating worms is a classic image in the spring.  Truth be told, in this area they don't migrate and they have been here all winter, but I know in a lot of places, people look for robins as one of the first signs of spring.  There are robins on our lawn almost any time you look out there.  One of the reasons I don't fertilize is for the health of the soil.  I don't think weed killers and worms mix too well.  The fact that the robins spend hours eating worm after worm indicates to me that I'm doing something right by doing nothing at all.

I included this photo because it illustrates how my lawn is full of a variety of small flowers.  This patch is a flower called Veronica repens which is a beautiful little flower, but doesn't like to stay where planted.  It started out in a garden bed on the other side of the house, but is no longer found there.  But there are patches of it all throughout the lawn.  So what to do - kill them?  Naahhh.  They're usually done blooming by mowing season anyway.

Note the intensity of the robin hunting for worms.  Is he looking for them or listening for them?  That has been an ongoing scientific debate for some time now.  Some believe it is all a matter of eyesight while others believe robins can actually hear the sub-sonic sounds a worm makes as it crawls through the soil.  My money is on this latter theory.  Watch a robin hunting worms and form your own conclusion about which theory is true.

Here is the classic robin photo of one pulling a worm out of it's hole in the ground.  If you have ever tried to pull a worm out of the ground, you know there is an art to it.  Done wrong, you only get a part of the worm.  They seem to know just how much tension to exert.

Here is the same robin tossing one back.  I only spent a few minutes filming this one robin, but in that time, I watched it catch about ten worms.  I cannot imagine how many are in the soil since there are always at least two robins out there doing this all day long.  The male robin's coloring is a little more intense then the female.  All three of these photos are the same male.