For sure, every area of the country has its birds that reside year around and birds that wander through on their way somewhere else to nest and then some in between the two-those that winter somewhere else but nest here.
We recently had the largest, most rowdy flock of robins move through our area; their brief stay outdid every other occurrence in memory. They were everywhere, and they stayed perhaps for ten days, then left. Some years, the last five for sure, there were no robins to be seen here. Their travel guide put them on a different route to their northern nesting areas, but this year our place was a featured stopover.
The interesting part of this story is the apparent preferences the birds show in their eating, nesting and social habits.
The robins are noted earthworm eaters, but we have no earthworms here, at least none so near the surface that they can tug them out in the classical robin fashion. So, what do they eat while ganging up on us as they did recently? Their droppings show a lot of red berry evidence, and the only red berries we have right now in any quantity are prickly pear tuna berries that the deer have not already found. But those berries are tucked inside the tunas and not easily obtainable by the robin, so these birds were probably feasting on such berries as possum haws. Strange as it may be, they may find this fruit the only thing to eat in the area as they travel northward. Bird authorities have found that migrating robins eat small berries until they exhaust the supply, then move on northward. They roost in clusters in trees at night which accounts for the pile of droppings concentrated on the ground below.
And then there is the noted Golden-cheeked warbler. We talk a lot about how important it is to protect this bird's nesting habitat, but we actually don't sacrifice much to help this bird. This bird seems to have two dominant preferences, one is the mature Ashe Juniper that produces stringy shreds of bark they use in nest building and the other is seclusion and privacy. The nest is nearly always made from this stringy bark that the bird rips off the trunk of the mature Ashe Juniper. So, even when we proclaim that we are protecting the Golden-cheeked warbler, landowners are busy eradicating their land of the Juniper and building dense housing units on the cleared land. Hey, not so fast, remember what we proclaim about protecting the habitat of the warbler.
Here is an example in a photo credited to Amanda Aurora of a nest being monitored. Note especially the flat strips of Ashe Juniper bark that rings the nest.
