The Birdman of BelAir
for National Geographic News
For about two weeks early one January, a flock of American robins attacked a pyracantha bush across the street from me—and they ate practically every berry that bush had to offer. I parked myself about 15 feet (3 meters) away, in the street, and started taking pictures of these robins.
Now, the robins don't just fly over to the bush and start picking off berries. They fly into the shrubbery first, and then they work their way out gradually to the perimeter of the plant, where the berries are (and I am standing). Once at the berries, they feed voraciously, picking them off the stem one by one and swallowing them whole.
They make a great deal of noise talking to each other. They have a kind of chip-squawk that they use to communicate, and when they're all chip-squawking away, one after the other, there is no mistaking that there are a lot of robins around.
But the robins weren't the only birds that took advantage of the pyracantha berries while they were on the bush. For a few days a number of cedar waxwings visited the pyracantha along with the robins, and the waxwings were just as voracious in their consumption of the berries as the robins were.
Also joining the pyracantha party was the hermit thrush, a tiny, delicate bird that creeped around in the underbrush and would suddenly fly up to a berry, pick it off the branch, and then disappear into the shrubbery with its catch. The hermit thrush actually hovers in the air when it pulls off this maneuver.
Not to be left out was the fox sparrow, which emerged onto the sidewalk from time to time to gather berries for itself.
As I said, this pyracantha party went on for a couple of weeks, but after a while, there were fewer and fewer berries on the bush, and eventually, there were hardly any berries at all. At this point the robins just simply disappeared, as did the cedar waxwing, the hermit thrush, and the fox sparrow.
Now, the hermit thrush would soon head off for its breeding grounds to the north and east, as would the fox sparrow and cedar waxwing. But the American robin is a resident here, and I have hardly ever seen this bird in my neighborhood before or after the pyracantha party.
I think I'll send my invitations out early this year.
Robins and Pyracatha Berries
Although the American robin is famous for digging earthworms out of suburban lawns, it actually eats a wide variety of insects during the summer, including beetles, caterpillars, crickets, grasshoppers, flies, and termites—as well as snails and spiders. In the winter it subsists primarily on vegetable matter, including fruits such as grapes, figs, pears, apples, and cherries, as well as the berries of such plants as holly, bayberry, elderberry, hawthorn, madrone, manzanita, camphor tree, mulberry, sumac, toyon, pepper tree, and cotoneaster.
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