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Come back to this page each day to read another entry from Frederick R. Gehlbach's almanac of suburban natural and unnatural history, "Messages from the Wild," which chronicles the world of a forested ravine in central Texas.
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Among the migratory crowds, the largest single-species flocks belong to American robins. They arrive this week, stay a few days, eat berries, and leave. Since Ashe juniper berries are larger and darker than eastern red cedar berries, they should be favored, but I can't detect a preference. Some robins remain in winter as do cedar waxwings, who are equally voracious berry eaters, and some will travel on with the hordes that come north next January. A relatively small but constant number will stay to nest. American robins are consummate yard birds -- suburbia's most familiar messengers across the continent. |
Frederick R. Gehlbach is Professor Emeritus of Biology and Environmental Studies at Baylor University. His ecological studies have taken him from New Zealand to Slovakia and, in the Americas, from Alaska and Newfoundland to Guatemala, Belize and Honduras. His research interests include the life-history strategies of small owls, small burrowing snakes and urban wildlife ecology.
From MESSAGES FROM THE WILD: AN ALMANAC OF SUBURBAN NATURAL AND UNNATURAL HISTORY by Frederick R. Gehlbach, Copyright © 2002. Courtesy of the University of Texas Press.
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