American Robin

Robins are the literal early bird that gets the worm. As the dawn chorus’s opening act, robins start to sing well before sunrise.

Like a good yard sale, the robin speaks to the suburban experience. On a summer day look out at any lawn, and you’re likely to see a robin. Watch telephone wires, treetops, clotheslines, anyplace with a foothold and a prominent view, and you’ll eventually catch sight of a robin. Because they are ubiquitous, robins are a good “early bird” for practicing identification as a beginning birder.

Robin songs are easily identified through temporal cues. They are among the first birds to sing each morning. Robin song dominates the earliest half-hour or so of the dawn chorus. When I worked as a songbird survey technician, it was my job to wake up before sunrise to get out when birds are most vocally active in the wee morning hours. I associate robin song with those moments in bed just after my alarm has sounded but before I’ve gotten the gumption to rise and make my way out to the field. It’s still pitch-black outside, but the robins are already at it, singing their lilting melodies. For me, their song conjures that feeling of resistance the body makes when its begging to press snooze but forced into action. The robins were their own sort of alarm clock, telling me I’d reached beyond the realm of snooze.

Above: The robin’s song consists of a flowing melody that sounds as if it’s pulling loopy-di-loops on itself. Many species sound similar to robins, but theirs is the only call to fray into nearly inaudible high notes.

Above: Cheaps appear as isolated spikes

Robins must love good deals, the way they’re always yelling, “Cheap, cheap, cheap.” Maybe they are excited about yardsale deals, but more likely they are feeling territorial. Robins often nest near human activity, and in doing so, they put themselves and their nests in our paths. When we cross those paths, robins often scold us with relentless, close-range cheaps. Since it’s so common, novice birders will do well to pay attention and learn to describe the call. Some useful descriptors might include: loud, sharp, and insistent. Think about how the call rates next to other things you hear around the yard, on your walk to work, in the parking lot, wherever. If you learn the topography of the robin’s call, you can later employ it as a baseline of comparison for other species.

I also associate robins with rain, with that feeling of stepping with bare feet onto a steaming sidewalk after a passing summer shower. Robins break into song after rain as if they are celebrating the return of the sun. It’s a jovial song with lots of ups and downs, most often sung in a chorus (individual robins chiming in across the land), so that the song of the robin adds its own color to the ornate tapestry of this Midwestern landscape.

Recently fledged robins appear a bit clownish with their speckled bellies and overlarge beaks. Through peak yard sale season, watch them hop their ways towards the day when they grow their big-kid feathers and fly away..

Robins also make a high pitched, sometimes barely audible alarm call that goes something like, “sssssp.” Alarm calls across species are often high-pitched, consisting of frequencies that are hard for predators (like people) to track. If you think you hear a robin’s alarm call, take a second to stand still and scan the ground and low branches for birds. It’s good practice for your ears to follow sounds to their source, and it’s good practice to take a cue to pause and re-attune yourself to your surroundings. If the day is going along as usual and everyone seems to be calmly going about their business before you hear a sudden flurry of “ssssssps,” take the chance to look for the source of the robin’s alarm. Tuning into alarm calls is a great way to catch rare glimpses of more elusive wildlife.

That’s what’s great about robins. They are so common, they offer us a thread that’s always within reach and sturdy enough to keep us connected to the natural world. Wherever we are, however busy or distracted, there’s a robin doing its robin thing, singing its robin song, reminding us that there’s a whole world out there ready and waiting for us to take notice.