[Tweeters] robin extravaganza postscript

[Diane Yorgason-Quinn via Tweeters]

About 3 weeks ago, and for another week, I had what seemed like hundreds of robins in the very high madrona trees after those berries.  I was in my house and heard this huge racket, ran out and saw them going crazy way up there, about 4 stories high.
I actually put a recording of their noise on eBird: https://ebird.org/checklist/S200723095

Diane Yorgason-Quinn
Wauna, WA
avosetta at hotmail.com
________________________________
From: Tweeters <tweeters-bounces at mailman11.u.washington.edu> on behalf of Robert O'Brien via Tweeters <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Saturday, November 23, 2024 5:45 PM
To: Dennis Paulson <dennispaulson at comcast.net>
Cc: TWEETERS tweeters <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Tweeters] robin extravaganza postscript

We have this every year, often up to maybe 50 Robins..  We have an ornamental grape growing up into the top a 50' Aspen tree.  Small grapes are easily swallowed I guess.  These Robins are extremely furtive so that we rarely get a good look at them. They dash from nearby dense Doug Firs and then dive into the Aspen.We can only see parts of their bodies in the aspen and nothing in the Firs..
But this happened here about a month ago when the grapes were ripe.  We now have an 8 ft. Cotoneaster Cornubia absolutely covered with red berries.  But, nothing goes for them until late in the winter, and then only with very adverse weather.where little else is available.  I've heard that these are pataable only after some freezing weather, but even then ,with a mild winter they stay on the cotoneaster all winter.
Bob OBrien  Carver OR

On Sat, Nov 23, 2024 at 3:57 PM Dennis Paulson via Tweeters <tweeters at u.washington.edu<mailto:tweeters at u.washington.edu>> wrote:
Well, I first saw the robins in the next-door rowan tree at 1:30 or so, and they were still there until a few minutes ago, constantly flying in and out. In two hours, it looks as if they stripped that tree of at least 80% of its fruits. The robins will be excreting their seeds all over the place, but I guess most of them don’t sprout, as we don’t have rowans growing everywhere.

The German word for rowan is Vogelbeere, bird berry. This is a European tree, Sorbus aucuparia, but we have native species of Sorbus (mountain ash) as well, and I presume birds like them just as much.

It was a two-thrush day—a Hermit Thrush, a species we don’t see most winters, bathed in our fountain for a while.

Dennis Paulson
Maple Leaf, Seattle
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