American Robin

8 April 2015. Burlington ON. I really hadn’t reckoned on a Bird of the Day entry today. It’s been pouring for much of the morning and as I write our back yard is flooded. I can’t be sure, but I suspect that winter still hasn’t quite left the soil so it’s possible that a pan of sub-surface ice is preventing free drainage through our otherwise lightish loam.

As I gazed out of a window, I noticed this wonderfully handsome male American Robin pacing around looking for food. He’s been wandering over our lawn for a while, whether he’s found anything much I couldn’t say. He has also been working over some sheltered patches of leaf litter and picking at a few desiccated ornamental berries; I think he’s doing okay.

I managed to get a few shots of him which, despite two sheets of glass between the camera and its subject, worked out quite well. Note a couple of things: The dark sooty blackness of his cheeks and head, that’s what distinguishes him as male, it contrasts with the slate-grey brown of the neck and back, these lighter tones characterise the head of a female robin. Look too at the speckling of raindrops on his tail and flight feathers.

It’s interesting (to me) to note the structure and pattern his wing feathers: the wingtips are made up of long pointy and somewhat brownish primaries, they are overlaid by secondaries (which appear in the photos with light coloured edges) and they in turn are topped with layers of coverts. The less stiff feathers of the shoulder are known as scapulars. These feathers and structures when extended create an aerodynamically perfect wing, but in these pictures’ they’re folded as neatly as a courtesan’s fan.