Turning Over a New (old) Leaf

Change is fine; but how about those amazing things we can always count on?

The enthusiastic sound of children's voices during afternoon soccer practice floated over from across the slowly moving Underwood Creek on this particularly warm, after work, October Thursday afternoon.  The deliciously stuffed peppers Barbara was preparing would be ready around 6:00 PM, so I had time for some quick bird-watching on my way home.

Fall watching success is always harder to anticipate.  Birds are reversing course at this time of year merely passing through this particular zip code with the basic intent of staying warm over the winter.  Tree leaves are mostly still stuck on their branches and soughing on intermittently blowing breezes; making movement-based sightings tricky.  Temperatures fluctuate and unpredictable precipitation causes annual migratory patterns to speed up and/or retard according to the weather "upstream" of avian flyways.  In years when you could nearly set your watch by the clockwork comings and goings of certain species; there are just as many times when all bets are off.

One of the more steadfast of annual avian, natural occurrences seems to be well underway; American Robin Mania has indeed descended Milwaukee County.  This is the time of year when the robins all congregate prior to the majority of their masses leaving for warmer points south.  That's not to say that ALL robins leave a particular area; just most.  Some robins retreat all the way to southern Texas and Florida, but others winter as far north as they can find berries. So robins have an enormous winter range.

In late summer and early fall robins prepare for migration by eating a lot of fruit and insects as well as worms. Dozens of them will stand in open areas of forest floor that has been littered with now brown and yellow elm and birch leaves.  Using their large and pointy beaks, they will "flip" each leaf over looking for bugs to fill their hungry stomachs. The way that these birds cock their heads to the ground has (over time) hatched ill-founded belief that they are "listening" to worms, when indeed their keen eyesight is more efficiently in play with this signature head-tilt.  Flip, flip, flip...PECK!

While feeding, the more robins there are, the more likely that at least one of them will notice a predator and warn the rest. This particular day while standing still on the edge of the river watching a group of robins bathing; I heard the distinctive cry of a nearby Cooper's hawk. The birds quickly and warily retreated to the cover of the overhanging trees along the bank.  During migratory flights, hawks have trouble singling out one robin to strike when faced with their fast-moving, tight migratory flocks. With a large flock, some individuals may be more familiar with an area than others, and the experienced birds will show the others the best places for feeding and roosting. Since the robins are all moving together, no individual will know all the best places, and most of the flock members will both help and benefit from flock membership.

I don't know about you, but watching these magnificent birds painstakingly gathering their meal from under the remnants of discarded vegetation reminds me of the well-known phrase, "turning over a new leaf."  It is doubtful that it originated due to the eating behavior of our red-breasted, feathered friends; however in this crazy world of uncertainty, it's somehow comforting to imagine finding something good, under something discarded - if one merely looks beneath.