Hitchcock? No, not the Birds--Robins!

by K. Shannon
(Front royal, VA USA)

What a relief! It was just this afternoon, reading this Web site, that I learned that robins travel in large feeding flocks in winter months. That explains it!!

Just a week or so ago, in between the two huge snowfalls we experienced here in Northern Shenandoah Valley, I looked out one morning to see literally hundreds of robins--on every single branch--in our maple trees in the front and back yards. Like in The Birds, only much prettier and certainly less threatening.

I was awestruck at seeing so many together instead of the usual one or two. I was also chagrined to see what they did to our beautiful white snow! And our cars! Yikes! They clearly aren't starving!

Above all, I wondered--had the snow driven them to find any place the sun was shining (for a brief while, our trees) and why didn't the nearly three-foot snow-covering the ground deter them from our yard? Well, they've found somewhere else, because now they're gone. Sorry, I wasn't able to get a photo, but the image of them filling our trees won't leave my memory anytime soon.