Beneath a Robin’s Egg Sky
March 9th 2008
Jean Guy’s fantastic photo of an American Robin: Some rights Reserved: Creative Commons
Today was a gem of Southern winter. Occasional clouds tumbled headlong across the sky, but the surface was cool and calm. Temperatures in the low sixties brought out even the most reluctant resident avian males, and by ten o’clock every tall perch held an insistent singer proclaiming his worthiness.
Lin and I both spent the day inside. It wasn’t the tragedy it seems on the face of it. We both got work done, I caught a bit of basketball on TV, and we savored the luxury of not having to leave Ronnalin and venture into the world of commerce. And right now, I’m listening to Van Morrison sing There’ll Be Days Like this. Not bad, not at all—of course, a cold drizzle outside wouldn’t have hurt my resolve to work.
As it was, I kept running outside to suck in just a little of this beautiful day. On my first foray I was dazzled by the sky. I thought to myself that high arc was the color a male Cerulean wants to be.
On my dash into the yard at ten o’clock —new and improved daylight savings time—I first noticed the robins. There was a faltering stream of American Robins heading north in small groups. By noon the stream had become a river of flocks, some of which probably held as many as fifty birds.
The Basketball game and hard drive housekeeping held my attention for a while, so I didn’t get back outside until the dogs demanded it around four. By then the Robins were in full flood and the mockingbirds, thrashers, and cardinals had all been cowed into silence as hundreds of birds passed overhead. In the back corner of the yard, a lone towhee shrieked his alarm call.
My dashes outside became more frequent after that. There were other birds moving, too. Chunks of starlings, Red-winged Blackbirds, and Cedar Waxwings were embedded in the slipstream of the larger flock. But the large majority of birds winging over were robins. We used to have such flocks fly by when my neighborhood was crowned with tall hardwoods, but it has been years and years since those days.
It was a mighty fine thing to see, again.
Lin came out with at six, just as the flow of birds suddenly stopped. Now there were hundreds of robins sitting in the remaining old water oaks and pecans in the neighborhood. As the birds jockeyed for the best roosting sites the afternoon sun burnished them bright as scarlet tanagers.
As the sun fell, so did the temperature. As I headed in I took one more look at the darkening sky and realized that I was wrong earlier. This was not a cerulean day, today was robin-egg blue.
Take care and keep an eye on the sky.
American Robin’s Nest by Martin Ujlaki. Some rights Reserved: Creative Commons
